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O'Broder, Broderick, Brothers
Broderick is a fairly common indigenous surname in England. Nevertheless very few Irish Brodericks are of English extraction. the name affords a good example of the practice, which grew up during the two centuries of English and Protestant domination in Ireland after the Williamite Wars, of assimilating old Gaelic surnames to well-known English names somewhat resembling them. Thus for Lehane Lane was widely adopted, MacFirbis became generally Forbes and Cunnigan Cunningham; and in the same way O Bruadair and Mac Bruadair, which were at first anglicized as Broder and Brouder, acquired the forms Broderick and Brothers. Father McErlean, in his introduction to the poems of David O Bruadair, referring to a recent generation remarks "those who to their neighbours are Broders become Brodericks when they go marketing in the country town or when they enter a rent office or a court of law". It has been held that this sept is of Norse origin but there is no basis for this beyond the fact that Bruadar was a common name in the Scandinavian countries. Even had it been taken from this source that is no proof of Norse blood, but the fact is that many Bruadars are on record in Ireland before the "Danish" invasions began and before surnames came into existence. Several distant septs of O Bruadair existed in early mediaeval times of which tow may be mentioned here since their descendants were still found in or near their original territory. One was located in Co. Cork - in the barony of Barrymore - to which David or Daithi O Bruadair the poet belonged. It was presumably a branch of this which settled as a Munster family in Iverk (Ossory), where they were well established in the seventeenth century. In Co. Limerick, where the name is now quite numerous, they are registered as Brouder and Broderick in about equal numbers. The other belonged to Co. Galway, the most famous of whom was Fr. Anthony O'Bruadair, O.S.F., the martyr; the existence of two townlands called Ballybroder (in the parishes of Kilmeen and Loughrea) should be mentioned; Mr. P. J. Kennedy tells me that he knows more than 30 families of the name in the area between Galway and the Shannon. The best known of all Broderick families in Ireland is that of which Lord Midleton is the head. The first of these to come to Ireland was an Englishman, Sir Alan Broderick who was appointed Surveyor General of Ireland in 1660.