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Browne
Though this is one of the commonest of all surnames in England (more often without the E there), it is included here because the Brownes were one of the "Tribes" of Galway. The arms illustrated on Plate II are those of the Galway Brownes. There are many other distinguished families of Browne in Ireland, notably in Connacht - that of Lord Oranmore and Browne and the Brownes of Breaghwy, Co. Mayo - and in Kerry the Brownes of Killarney, whose historic Kenmare peerage has recently become extinct. No less important were the Brownes of Camus, Co. Limerick; Field-Marshal Maximilian Ulysses Browne (1708-1757) was son of Col. Ulysses Browne, of Camus, Co. Limerick. George Count de Browne (1698-1792) was yet another famous continental soldier of the Camus family.
The Galway Brownes are descended from a Norman, le Brun, who came to Ireland at the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. The Brownes, or Brunachs, are mentioned by MacFirbis in his Hy Fiachrach as one of the four Norman tribes who wrested the territory of Tirawley from the Fiachrach following the invasion. They established themselves in Galway by intermarriage with its leading family, the Lynches. By similar alliance with the O'Flahertys and the O'Malleys they secured their position as an Irish family of the West. The Brownes of Killarney, on the other hand, stem from an Elizabethan Englishman, but there again intermarriage with influential Gaelic families in Kerry consolidated their position. A very full account of this family is given in The Kenmare Manuscripts, published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission.
Referring to the Brownes of Connacht mention should also be made of John Browne, the first high sheriff of Mayo (1583). He was of the family already at that time well established at the Neale, in the barony of Kilmaine. His descendants who became, in the senior line, Barons of Kilmaine and, in the junior, Earls of Altamount, have since been closely associated with Co. Mayo. Seated at Westport the 3rd Marquis of Sligo (5th Earl of Altamont) was, prior to the land legislation of the late nineteenth century, owner of an estate of 114,000 acres.
Admiral William Brown (1777-1857), celebrated as the creator of the Argentine navy, was born at Foxford, Co. Mayo. It is thought that his family was a branch of the Connacht O'Breens whose name appears in the sixteenth century Fiants, inter alia, as O'Browne. No conclusive proof, however, of this descent is as yet forthcoming.
Recently two of the most important men in Galway city were Brownes: Michael Browne, Bishop of Galway, and Patrick Browne, President of University College, Galway, and a Gaelic Poet of distinction.