Background
He was the son of Sir Thomas Eustace (1480–1549), 1st Viscount Baltinglass and Margaret Talbot, daughter of Sir Peter Talbot of Malahide Castle, County Dublin.
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Rowland Eustace
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Education
As a boy, Roland"s father had completed New Abbey near Kilcullen which was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539.
Career
Little is known of his early life except that he seems to have lived at Blackrath (Calverston) until succeeding to the Baltinglass title and family estate at Harristown in 1549. This branch of the Eustace family held strongly to the Catholic faith through the Reformation. In 1558, he took his seat in the first Irish Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, but strongly opposed her Acting of Uniformity of that year and for this and other actions, he was ordered to be arrested in 1567 and conveyed to London, but the order was not carried out.
During the interval, however he had been commissioned as one of the Justices of the Peace for County Kildare during the temporary absence of the Lord Deputy in 1561.
Roland Eustace married Joan, daughter of James Butler, 8th Baron Dunboyne in about 1528. Joan, who married Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron Upper Ossory.
And
Eleanor, who married Sir Edmund Butler of Cloughgrenan, second son of the 9th Earl of Ormond, and was the mother of Catherine, fourth wife of William Eustace of Castlemartin. The sons were;
James Eustace, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass, (1530–1585)
Edmund,who married Frances Pipho and secondly Joan, daughter of Richard Walsh of Carrickmines.
He died childless in Portugal in 1597;
Thomas, was executed in 1582 for his involvement in the Baltinglass Rebellion.
Walter Eustace was captured in 1583 and executed. He later became a priest in Rome.
