Roland FitzEustace, 1st and last Baron Portlester, was an Irish peer, statesman and judge . Lord Portlester, began his long career in the Dublin administration in the early 1450s.
was the son of Sir Edward FitzEustace, Lord Deputy of Ireland and his wife Alicia. Rowland, a trained barrister, was appointed Chief Clerk to the Kings Bench in 1454 and quickly became Lord Treasurer. He was knighted in 1459, by Edward IV, and elevated to Baron Portlester in 1462.
He was a benefactor of several religious institutions .In 1455, he, added the Portlester Chapel at the east end of St. Audoen's Church, then the wealthiest parish in Dublin, and in 1486, he founded the Franciscan New Abbey of Grey Friars at Kilcullen. He was a benefactor of St. Malcolyn's, Hollywood (three miles south of Ballymore Eustace), and a co-founder of the Guild and Chantries of St. Columb, Skreen, and the Chantries at Piercetown, Laundey and Greenoge.
Although he was married three times (first to Joan, daughter of John Tapton; secondly (a. October 1458) to Joan, widow of Christopher Plunkett, Lord Killeen; and finally (c.1476) to Margaret, widow of Thomas Barnewall), he had no legitimate sons. His five daughters married into the nobility and gentry of the Pale, but when he died (December 1496) his title of Portlester died with him, and he was buried in New Abbey, Kilcullen.
There is a funeral effigy memorial to him and his third wife Margaret d'Artois in St. Audoen's Church, Dublin .
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