Breheny Coat of Arms, Family Crest and Breheny Family History

Breheny Family History

The Breheny ancient family history was found in the irishsurnames.com archives. Variants of the name O'Brehony include Breheny, Braheny and Judge. In Irish this surname is Mac an Bhreitheamhnaigh which literally means 'son of the judge'. Today the name Judge greatly outnumbers O'Brehony and the other variants. In 1659 the name was numerous in the barony of Tirerrill, County Sligo and in the 'Stafford's Inquisitions' we find people of the name in Connacht. The 'Four Masters' record the death of Cormac an Brehon in the year 1483 and in the next century Eugene MacBrehan was Bishop of Mayo from 1541 to 1561. A most famous person of the name was Peter Judge who was one of the finest actors in the Abbey Theatre Company. He died in 1947.The Breheny family crest (or coat of arms) came into existence many centuries ago. The process of creating these coats of arms began as early as the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this, including Ireland. The new more formalized art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own family crest, coat of arms, including Breheny descendants.