Roche MacGeoghegan | |
---|---|
Bishop of Kildare | |
Church | Roman Catholic Church |
See | Diocese of Kildare |
In office | 1628/9 – 1644 |
Predecessor | Donatus Doolin |
Successor | James Dempsey |
Personal details | |
Born | 1580 Probably County Westmeath |
Died | May 26, 1644 Probably County Westmeath | (aged 63–64)
Roche MacGeoghegan (1580 – 26 May 1644), also known as Roque de la Cruz, was a seventeenth-century Irish Dominican prelate and Tridentine reformist. A member of an aristocratic family from County Westmeath, he obtained a mostly Roman Catholic childhood education before, in his twenties, moving to Iberia and entering the Dominican Order. After many years promoting the revitalisation of the Order in Ireland, from Ireland and Continental Europe, he was considered unsuccessfully for the archbishopric of Armagh in 1625 and then successfully for the bishopric of Kildare in 1629, gaining himself the title of Ross, al Roche, D.D., Bishop of Kildare.[1] After a dozen years as bishop, his health slowly declined and he died in 1644. His nephew was historian and translator Conall MacGeoghegan.