Count Edward Charles Richard Taaffe (1898–1967), knowns as Richard, was the Irish gemmologist who found the first cut and polished taaffeite

Taaffeite

Taaffeite is a mineral named after its discoverer, Count Edward Charles Richard Taaffe who found the first cut and polished gem in November 1945. As such, it is the only gemstone to have been initially identified from a faceted stone. Most pieces of the gem, prior to Taaffe, had been...

 in November 1945. He was the son of Henry Taaffe, 12th Viscount Taaffe

Henry Taaffe, 12th Viscount Taaffe

Heinrich von Taaffe, 12th Viscount Taaffe, also 12th Baron of Ballymote was an Austrian Irish peer until 1919.He was born at Innsbruck, the son of Count Eduard Taaffe, Minister-President of Austria from 1879 to 1893...

, but inherited neither the Viscountcy, which was suspended as his father fought on the Austrian side in World War I, nor the title Count of the Holy Roman Empire, since Austria abolished those titles in 1919.