Christopher St Lawrence, 10th Baron Howth was an Anglo-Irish statesman and soldier of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. His personal charm made him a favourite of two successive English monarchs, and he was also a soldier of great courage and some ability, who fought under the Earl of Essex and Lord Mountjoy during the Nine Years' War. However, his bitter quarrels with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, his feuds with other leading families of the Anglo-Irish Pale, and his suspected involvement in the conspiracy which led to the Flight of the Earls, damaged his reputation. He is best remembered for the legend that he was kidnapped by the "Pirate Queen" Granuaile when he was a small boy.

Nicholas St. Lawrence, 9th Baron Howth (c.1550–1607) was a leading member of the Anglo-Irish nobility in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Despite openly professing his Roman Catholic faith, he enjoyed the trust of Elizabeth I and of successive Lord Deputies of Ireland, and was even forgiven by the English Crown for signing a petition protesting against the enforcement of the Penal Laws.