Roche, Regina Maria (1764–1845)

Irish writer. Born in County Waterford where she remained throughout her life, Roche wrote romantic novels that bordered on the Gothic. Her most successful work was the four-volume Children of the Abbey (1796). While several of her novels are set on the Continent or in Britain, her later fiction concentrates on Irish settings and issues such as absentee landlordism and Irish nationalism. Other works include The Munster Cottage Boy (1820) and The Castle Chapel (1825).