Irish surname search
The name Bracken was more numerous in the seventeenth century than it is today; it appears in the "census" of 1659 among the commoner Irish names in four baronies, three in Co. Offaly and the fourth, barony of Offaly, in Co. Kildare; and all the references in the Fiants of the previous century in which the name O'Brackane or variants occur relate to the same part of the country, where families of the name are still mainly found. In Irish the name is Ó Breacáin and is derived from the word breac, speckled. Benedict O'Breacan was Bishop of Achonry from 1286 to 1312. Thomas Bracken (I 843-1898), of Clones, emigrated from Ireland to Australia as a boy and after some years there became a prominent public figure in New Zealand as member of parliament and poet. The career of Brendan Bracken, 1st Viscount Bracken, (1901-1958) is said to have begun when at the age of 15 he ran away from school at the Jesuit College of Mungret, Co. Limerick; it ended as a financial magnate and cabinet minister in the British government.