Rochford, Luke (d. 1631/2), catholic priest and author, was the third son of Robert Rochford of Kilbride, Co. Meath, and Eleanor, daughter of Sir Lucas Dillon (qv). His father was a lawyer and also one of the most prominent recusants in the Pale being imprisoned in 1591. It is unsurprising therefore that on 30 November 1611 Luke appears in Cologne being received by the Capuchins. He subsequently left the order and studied for the priesthood at Douai, where he was a theology student in 1622. In 1621 he published at Paris The genealogy of protestants, which he dedicated to his protestant cousin Thomas Elliot, apparently in the hope of converting him. He argued that there was nothing original about protestantism: rather it was merely a rehash of ancient heresies. He was in Dublin by 1623 and in 1624 he was appointed parish priest of St Audoen's, Dublin. The same year he published An antidot to laziness, in which he contrasted Ireland's past glories with its current degenerate state. Painting a bleak picture of contemporary Ireland, he described widespread famine and complained that parents did not instruct their children in a suitably religious fashion. He reserved his greatest condemnation for the vice of drunkenness, which he held to be endemic. He also set up and taught at a classical school in Bridge Street for those who wished to join the secular clergy.
By the mid 1620s relations between the secular and regular catholic clergy were seriously strained. The seculars were resentful of both the success and the popularity of the regulars, particularly the friars, and also held that they were preventing the establishment of an effective parochial system in Ireland. Rochford was one of the most determined opponents of the friars, perhaps a result of his days with the Capuchins. Matters came to a head following the death of Thomas Plunckett, a recusant alderman. He was Rochford's first cousin, and a room in his residence also happened to be the mass house for St Audoen's parish. The funeral ceremony was attended by all the catholic clergy of Dublin, both secular and regular. A dispute arose over who should preach the eulogy, Rochford or Thomas Strange, guardian of the Dublin Franciscans. With the issue unresolved Strange mounted the pulpit and began to preach, at which the secular clergy walked out.
Rochford also came into conflict with the regulars over the appointment of Patrick Cahill, a teacher in his school, as parish priest of St Michael's. Rochford and his supporters publicly denounced the regulars, and he wrote a number of pamphlets against them, although none has survived. Such disputes delighted the authorities, who generally favoured the seculars, whom they perceived to be more moderate. In 1630 he was granted the archdeaconry of Dublin and was made a notary apostolic on 8 November 1631. He probably died in 1631 and was certainly dead by 1633.