Henry Bruen PC, DL (16 June 1828 – 8 March 1912) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

politician. He was

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for Carlow County from 1857 to 1880, taking his seat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

of what was then the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great B ...

. He was the third (and last) in a line of Henry Bruens to represent

County Carlow County Carlow ( ; ga, Contae Cheatharlach) is a county located in the South-East Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. Carlow is the second smallest and the third least populous of Ireland's 32 traditional counties. Carlow Cou ...

. Bruen was elected unopposed at 1857 general election, taking a seat previously held by his father

Henry Bruen (1789–1852) Colonel Henry Bruen (3 October 1789 – 5 November 1852) was an Irish Tory Party (and later Conservative Party) politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Carlow County for a total of about 36 years, in three separate periods between 1812 ...

. He was returned unopposed at the next the general elections, but at the 1880 general election, Carlow's two Conservative MPs were both defeated by

Home Rule League The Home Rule League (1873–1882), sometimes called the Home Rule Party, was an Irish political party which campaigned for home rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, until it was replaced by the Irish Parliam ...

candidates. On 26 April 1880, shortly after his electoral defeat, he was sworn as a member of the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...

. In addition to his Parliamentary seat, Bruen held a number of other appointments. He was

High Sheriff of Carlow The High Sheriff of Carlow was the British Crown's judicial representative in County Carlow, Ireland from the 14th century until 1922, when the office was abolished in the new Free State and replaced by the office of Carlow County Sheriff. The she ...

in 1855, and

High Sheriff of Wexford The High Sheriff of Wexford was the British Crown's judicial representative in County Wexford, Ireland from the 16th century until 1922, when the office was abolished in the new Irish Free State and replaced by the office of Wexford County Sheriff ...

in 1883, and was at some unspecified time a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

in both counties. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) of County Carlow.

Family

Bruen was the youngest child, and only son, of Henry Bruen (1789–1852) and his wife Anne Wandesforde Kavanagh (died 1850). His father had been an MP for Carlow County for most of the period from 1812 until death; his grandfather Henry Bruen (1741–1795) had been a member of the pre- Act of Union

Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland ( ga, Parlaimint na hÉireann) was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chamb ...

; and his uncle

Francis Bruen Francis Bruen (died 15 December 1867) was an Irish Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Carlow Borough from 1835 to 1837, and briefly in 1839, taking his seat in the House of Commons of what was then the United Kin ...

was an MP for Carlow Borough in the 1830s. Henry Bruen lived at Coolbawn, County Wexford, and at Oak Park, an estate near

Carlow Carlow ( ; ) is the county town of County Carlow, in the south-east of Ireland, from Dublin. At the 2016 census, it had a combined urban and rural population of 24,272. The River Barrow flows through the town and forms the historic bounda ...

town which his grandfather had acquired in 1775, and which remained in the family until 1957. He married Mary Margaret Conolly, daughter of Edward Michael Conolly on 6 June 1854; they had 11 children. The estates were inherited by his eldest son, Henry (1856–1927), a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Another son,

Edward Francis Bruen Admiral Edward Francis Bruen, CB (7 November 1866 – 22 November 1952) was a Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval pe ...

, was an admiral in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. In 1874 one of his daughters, Katharine Anne Bruen, married

Thomas McClintock-Bunbury, 2nd Baron Rathdonnell Thomas Kane McClintock-Bunbury, 2nd Baron Rathdonnell (29 November 1848 – 22 May 1929), was an Anglo-Irish peer, British Army officer and politician. Biography He was the son of Captain William Bunbury McClintock-Bunbury and Pauline Carol ...

. Henry Bruen died at Oak Park in March 1912 aged 83.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bruen, Henry 1828 births 1912 deaths 19th-century Irish people Irish Conservative Party MPs UK MPs 1859–1865 UK MPs 1865–1868 UK MPs 1868–1874 UK MPs 1874–1880 Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Carlow constituencies (1801–1922) Politicians from County Carlow Politicians from County Wexford Deputy Lieutenants of Carlow High Sheriffs of Carlow High Sheriffs of Wexford Members of the Privy Council of Ireland