Numerical results presented in this study provides qualitative as well as quantitative insight into nanoscale heat transfer and optofluidic convection around plasmonic Au nanospheres and nanorods under laser irradiation. The contribution of convection to heat transfer from nanoparticle to the surrounding is negligible as viscous forces are too large relative to the buoyancy forces. However, the convective flow on its own is an important aspect to consider in many applications. As the volume of a nanoparticle increases, the amount of energy absorbed also increases. In general, if the nanoparticle volume is constant, nanorods can attain much higher temperature than nanospheres under laser of fixed intensity. However, the steady temperature depends very much on the orientation of the nanorod with respect to the incident laser. For most of the applications, the orientation angle θ can be within 0 o to 30 o without significantly reducing the steady state temperature. Under nanosecond pulsed laser, the nanoparticle temperature variation with time eventually becomes periodic after sufficient time. For longer pulses, the temperature window within which the temperature varies is wider. The variation of the surrounding temperature field in water with the nanoparticle temperature is also instantaneous at this time scale. Thus, the pulse duration may be an important parameter to be chosen judiciously for different applications. The convective flow around a nanoparticle under laser irradiance is strongly dependent on the size of the confinement and the location of the nanoparticle with respect to the confining walls. Naturally, as the size of the confinement increases, the velocity magnitude increases. For a nanoparticle located at the centre of a spherical confinement, the fluid below the nanoparticle can flow up to replace the rising hot fluid. Such ease of fluid motion is not possible in the presence of a wall below the nanoparticle in close proximity. Thus, the velocity fields for hemispherical confinements are much weaker than that for spherical confinements. The effect of slip boundary condition on the confining walls on the velocity magnitude is more prominent for hemispherical confinements than spherical confinements. For hemispherical confinements, increasing the distance of the nanoparticle from the bottom wall significantly strengthen the velocity field. Additionally, adiabatic boundary condition (or insulating wall) on the bottom wall also increases the velocity magnitude and the extent of the flow field significantly.