Earl of Desart

Lord Desart was the younger son of John Cuffe, who represented Thomastown in the Irish House of Commons between 1715 and 1727.

He served as Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies between March and December 1852 in the Earl of Derby's first administration.

His younger son, the fifth Earl (who succeeded his elder brother in 1898, was a prominent lawyer and notably served as Queen's Proctor between 1894 and 1909 and as Director of Public Prosecutions between 1894 and 1908.

His daughter Lady Sybil Cuffe was the mother of the writer Iris Origo through her first husband William Bayard Cutting Jr., an American with Dutch and Huguenot ancestry who was the secretary to the U.S. embassy to the Court of St. James's and whose father was a successful American merchant.

The family seat was Desart Court, County Kilkenny, in the Republic of Ireland.