Portrait of George, 1st Marquess of Waterford (1735-1800), full-length, in a blue coat with a red collar, breeches, and a red and gold embroidered waistcoat, holding a tricorn and gloves, leaning on a walking stick, beside a tree in a landscape

George de la Poer Beresford succeeded his father Marcus, 1st Earl of Tyrone, who had married Catherine Poer, Baroness Poer, daughter and heiress of James Power, 3rd Earl of Tyrone, in 1763. In 1786 he was created Baron Tyrone of Haverford West in the peerage of Great Britain and three years later he was elevated as Marquess of Waterford in the in the peerage of Ireland. He married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Henry Monck of Charleville in 1769 and died in 1800. The heir to substantial estates in County Waterford, the Marquess was one of the richest men in Ireland. He owed his promotion to his support of the administration of William Pitt. His sitting to a fashionable London portrait painter was matched by his employment of James Wyatt on the interiors of a number of major rooms of Curraghmore in 1778-80. His sister, Lady Betty Cobbe's taste was equally cosmopolitian; she herself painted by Angelica Kauffmann (Cornforth, op. cit., fig. 9). With her husband, she formed a varied collection of pictures for Newbridge, which was enlarged in the 1760s. Part of the collection remains in the house, now the property of Dublin Corporation.