Mary Cynthia Roche

Mary Cynthia Burke Roche was a British aristocrat, schoolteacher, and writer.

Biography

Born at Peterculter, Aberdeenshire, on 19 August 1934, she was the eldest child of Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy, and Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Roche was educated at Heathfield School, Ascot; St Paul's Girls' School, London; and in Florence, where she studied Italian and art history.
Roche briefly entered business with Mark Birley to secure the British franchise for Hermès luxury goods and later owned a short-lived Kenyan safari airline. In mid-life, she earned a classics degree from University College London and taught at secondary schools in London. She also published Call Me Maurice: The Life and Times of Lord Fermoy, 1885–1955 and remained active in the King's Lynn Festival founded by her mother.
Roche married three times. Her first husband, Anthony Berry, later a Conservative MP, was killed in the Brighton hotel bombing; they had four children. She married Denis Geoghegan, a UCL tutor, in 1973, and classics master Michael Gunningham in 1981.