Anglo-Irish author and co-founder of the Irish Georgian Society. He was the younger of two sons born to Bryan Guinness, the future 2nd Baron Moyne, and his first wife, the former Diana Mitford, the most beautiful of the storied Mitford sisters, both members of the "Bright Young Things," a group of young aristocrats prominently followed by the press in 1920s London. His paternal grandfather, Walter Guinness, was a younger son of Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, and an heir of the Guinness brewing fortune. He was created Baron Moyne, of Bury Saint Edmunds in the County of Suffolk on January 21, 1932. Although born into a family of wealth and privilege, Desmond's childhood was nevertheless marred by tragedy. His paternal grandfather was assassinated in Cairo, Egypt in 1944 while serving as British Minister of State in the Middle East. His parents' marriage deteriorated while he was still an infant and his mother left his father for Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet, a British politician and leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). They were eventually married on October 6, 1936 in Germany at the home of Joseph Goebbels with Adolf Hitler, her personal friend, as the guest of honor. His mother's support of the BUF and association with the highest-ranking Nazi government officials in Germany resulted in her internment for three years during World War II. As an adult, he vividly recalled visiting his mother in London's Holloway Prison for Women when only ten years of age. He received an education commensurate with his background, attending Eton, Gordonstoun, and Christ Church, Oxford. He was married in Oxford on July 3, 1954 to Princess Marie Gabrielle von Urach, known more familiarly as Mariga, whose father was German, Prince Albrecht von Urach, a member of a morganatic branch of the royal family of Württemberg, and her mother was Scottish, the journalist Rosemarry Blackadder. Following their marriage, the young couple moved to Ireland in 1955 and rented Carton House in County Kildare, the former country house of the Dukes of Leinster. They bought Leixlip Castle in 1958, one of the oldest continually inhabited structures in Ireland, and made it their home. Sharing a common love of Georgian architecture, they established the Irish Georgian Society on February 21, 1958 as an architectural preservation organization to promote and encourage an interest in the conservation of distinguished examples of architecture and its allied arts of all periods in Ireland. Their preservation efforts included Conolly's Folly in County Kildare; the Damer House in Roscrea; and Castletown House in Celbridge, considered by many to be the finest Palladian house in Ireland. He and his wife made a glamorous couple and Leixlip Castle became known as the setting for their parties, featuring a diverse selection of guests ranging from members of the British royal family to Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. The marriage was not to last, however, and the couple divorced in 1981 following a long separation. He was remarried in 1984 to Penelope Cuthbertson. He was widely recognized for his work in architectural preservation. He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1980; was made an honorary member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland in 2001; and was awarded the Europa Nostra Award, a European Union prize for cultural heritage, in 2006, in recognition of "… fifty years of unrelenting voluntary efforts and spectacular achievements in favour of Ireland's architectural heritage" (Source: The Honourable Desmond Guinness - European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards). He authored and co-authored a number of books dealing with architectural subjects, including Portrait of Dublin (1967); Georgian Dublin (1979); Irish Houses and Castles, co-authored with William Ryan (1973); and Great Irish Houses and Castles, co-authored with Jacqueline O'Brien (1998). He stepped down as president of the Irish Georgian Society in 1990, but he continued to support and work for the preservation of Ireland's architectural heritage for the remainder of his life.