Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
The Lord Oranmore and Browne | |
Office1: | Member of the House of Lords |
Status1: | Lord Temporal |
Term Start1: | 30 June 1927 |
Predecessor1: | The 3rd Baron Oranmore and Browne |
Term End1: | 11 November 1999 |
Successor1: | Seat abolished |
Birth Name: | Dominick Geoffrey Edward Browne |
Birth Date: | 21 October 1901 |
Birth Place: | Dublin, Ireland |
Death Place: | Westminster, England |
Parents: | Geoffrey Browne, 3rd Baron Oranmore and Browne Olwen Verena Ponsonby |
Children: | 8, including: Dominick Browne, 5th Baron Oranmore and Browne Garech Browne Tara Browne |
Dominick Geoffrey Edward Browne, 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne, 2nd Baron Mereworth (21 October 1901 – 7 August 2002), was a British peer and legislator.
He was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family as the Hon. Dominick Geoffrey Edward Browne in 1901, the eldest son of the 3rd Baron Oranmore and Browne and Lady Olwen Verena Ponsonby, daughter of the 8th Earl of Bessborough. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, before joining the Grenadier Guards, serving 1921–1922 as a second lieutenant.[1]
In 1927, he succeeded his father and took his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Mereworth, a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom (the older barony of Oranmore and Browne, in the Peerage of Ireland, did not entitle its bearer to a seat in the Lords), although he primarily used his Irish title. He sat in the House of Lords for 72 years, the longest by any peer up to that time, and during that time was one of the few peers to have never spoken in the House.
In 1930, the English residence of the Browne family, Mereworth Castle, was sold and he went to live in his Irish residence, Castle MacGarrett, just outside Claremorris in County Mayo. Castle MacGarrett, its 3000acres and 150 employees gave him the chance to breed racehorses and farm on a large scale. Lord Oranmore and Browne was also an aviator.[2]
In 1939, Oranmore and Browne tried to rejoin the British Army, but he was told that, at 38, he would be more useful concentrating on farming; as a result, his war service was in neutral Ireland with the Irish reserve force, the Local Defence Force, in County Mayo.
In the early 1950s, the castle was acquired by the Irish Government's Irish Land Commission and turned into a nursing home. Lord Oranmore and Browne went to live in London.
Lord Oranmore and Browne married three times :
Lord Oranmore and Browne died in London on 7 August 2002 at the age of 100.[4]