Richard Taaffe

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.