Geoffrey Browne of Galway

ORANMORE AND BROWNE, BARON. (Browne) Peer of Ireland

Godfrey or Geoffrey de Brun came over with William the Conqueror in 1066. His great-grandson David Brun or Browne Fitz-Stephen, went to Ireland with Prince John in 1185, and to his descendant in the 4th degree, Sir david Browne, large possessions in Leinster and Connaught were granted, after the battles of Athenry, in 1316, and Dundalk in 1318, in which he was engaged with Richard, 4th Lord Athenry, and his brother, Sir John Birmingham, 1st Earl of Louth. He settled at Bally-David near Athenry; the family removed about 1442 to Carra-Browne castle, in Oranmore, near Galway.

Sir Dominick Browne, 10th in descent from Sir David, was knighted by Lord Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford, in 1629. His son Geoffrey was one of the Envoys from the Confederates to Queen Henrietta, in 1647, and afterwards to the Duke of Lorraine, in 1650. He was pillaged of a considerable part of his estates under Cromwell, and forced to remove to mayo, were the family have since resided at Castle-Mac-Garrett. His sons Dominick and Stephen, each held a regiment in King James’s service at the battle of Aughrim. Colonel Browne’s son Geoffrey, planted most extensively at the Castle-Mac-Garrett, in 1694, and lived sixty years after. He married a daughter of the ancestor of the present Lord Wallscourt.

His son Dominick married in 1754, Henrietta, daughter of Sir henry Lynch, of Carrindulla, Bart., by whom he had an only son, Dominick Geoffrey Browne, Esq., a Governor of mayo, for whom see The Peerage Volume. In his time in 1811, the family mansion, Castle-Mac-Garrett, was destroyed by fire, and many ancient family documents burnt, leaving this genealogy necessarily imperfect. His son Dominick, the present Lord, represented the County of mayo in seven Parliaments, was made a Privy Counsellor in 1834, and created a Peer of Ireland in 1836, by the title of Baron Oranmore and Browne, of Carra-Browne castle, in the County of the Town of Galway, and of the Castle-Mac-Garrett, in the County of Mayo. Edmund Lodge: The Genealogy of the Existing British Peerage: With Sketches of the Family

Browne of Athenry, Browne of Browne Hall, Browne of Carrabrowne, Browne of Castle Macgarrett, Browne of Galway, Browne of Oranmore: http://www.multiwords.de/genealogy/brown08.htm