John Mulcahy reviews the vicissitudes of fate and fortune through the generations of the Browne family at Westport House, County Mayo
Westport House is one of the very few early 18th-century houses in Ireland which is still occupied by the same family for which it was built. Obviously the Brownes are survivors.
The first of the family to seek his fortune in Mayo was John Browne, a younger son from Cowdray Castle in Sussex. That was in Elizabethan times, or in 1580 to be precise. A century later, his namesake Colonel John Browne (1638-1712) who had by then acquired over 114,000 acres in Mayo and 41,000 in Galway, was considered one of the richest men in Connaught.
