Valentine Browne, 1st Viscount Kenmare
Valentine Browne, 1st Viscount Kenmare (1638–1694), was an Irish peer. He was created Viscount Kenmare in the Peerage of Ireland on 20 May 1689, by King James II, after his deposition by the English Parliament, but while he still possessed his rights as King of Ireland. At the time James was presiding over the short-lived Patriot Parliament. The peerage remained on the Irish patent roll in a constitutionally ambiguous position, but was not formally recognised by the Protestant political establishment.[1] By his wife Jane Plunkett, daughter of Nicholas Plunkett, he was the father of Nicholas, 2nd Viscount; his son's estates were forfeit but were recovered by his grandson.
A poem by Aogán Ó Rathaille mocked this vulgar person, compared to the Gaelic aristocrats whose place he attempted to supplant. In translation by Frank O'Connor it says:
That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom,
That foreign devils have made our land a tomb,
That the sun that was Munster's glory has gone down
Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown
That royal Cashel is bare of house and guest,
That Brian's turreted home is the otter's nest,
That the kings of the land have neither land nor crown
Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.
Garnish away in the west with its master banned,
Hamburg the refuge of him who has lost his land,
An old grey eye, weeping for lost renown,
Have made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.
References
- ↑ George Edward Cokayne, ed (ca. 1900 reprinted 1983). The Complete Baronetage. Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing. p. i:237