Taaffe was born and grew up on the Bohemian estate of Ellischau (today Nalžovské Hory), the family seat.
His father had once held hereditary titles from two different countries: he was a Count (Graf) of the Holy Roman Empire and a viscount in the Peerage of Ireland.
[2] In the years after World War I, Richard Taaffe emigrated to the Irish Free State and worked there as a gemologist.
In October 1945, he discovered the very rare mineral Taaffeite (Mg 3 Al 8 BeO 16, also known as Magnesiotaaffeite, 2N'2S ), which was later named after him: Taaffe had a large number of old cut gems obtained from the Dublin jeweller Robert Dobbie, extracted from old jewellery.
Upon close examination, Taaffe found that a spinel-derived purple stone originating from Sri Lanka had a birefringence that was absent in a spinel.