Brady is the anglicized form of the Gaelic Mac Brádaigh, 'son of Brádach', the name of a great County Cavan family whose chief ruled Cúil Bhríghde, the district around Stradone east of Cavan town. MacBrady, M'Brady and O'Brady are forms of the same name. Every Brady and MacBrady piece we make is gathered in our Brady and MacBrady Irish family gifts collection.
Quick answer: Brady comes from Mac Brádaigh, a family of East Breifne in County Cavan. Their lordship of Cúil Bhríghde lay around Stradone and the parish of Drung, within the kingdom ruled by the O'Reillys. The family produced bishops of Kilmore, two notable Irish-language poets, and one of Ireland's more common surnames.
What Does the Name Brady Mean?
The personal name behind the surname is Brádach. Father Patrick Woulfe, in Irish Names and Surnames (1923), glosses it as 'spirited' and describes Mac Brádaigh as "the name of a great Cavan family." Edward MacLysaght, the twentieth-century authority on Irish surnames, noted that the ordinary Irish word bradach can also mean 'thieving', so the name may once have carried a teasing edge. Both readings point to a lively, bold character, the kind of personal name Gaelic Ireland liked to hand down.
The early English records wrote the name as M'Bradie, M'Brady and M'Brade before plain Brady took over. MacBrady survives as a family spelling in its own right. Ó Brádaigh, anglicized O'Brady, was always rare; Woulfe treats it as a variant of Mac Brádaigh, and it is the form some Irish speakers choose today. There is one separate strand: MacLysaght records that the Ó Grádaigh family of east Clare also anglicized their name as Brady, so a Clare Brady line can have a different root from the Cavan family.
Where Did the Brady Family Come From?
The homeland was Cúil Bhríghde (also written Cúil Bhríghdéin), the MacBrady lordship in east-central Cavan. Woulfe places it "around Stradone in Co. Cavan." Stradone, in Irish Sraith an Domhain, 'the river-meadow of the valley floor', is a townland in the parish of Larah and the barony of Loughtee Upper. The Dictionary of Irish Biography places the lordship in the Cootehill area and describes the parish of Drung, in the barony of Tullygarvey, as part of "the MacBradys' traditional territory." Put together, Brady country ran through the drumlins and small lakes between Cavan town and Cootehill.
That district is still the heart of the name. Woulfe found the surname "very common in Ulster and also in many parts of Leinster," and the spread follows the roads out of Cavan into Meath, Longford, Westmeath and Monaghan. In civil registration Brady ranked 54th among Irish surnames in 1890 and 51st in 1996, according to John Grenham's figures.
What Was Breifne, and Where Did the MacBradys Fit?
Breifne was the Gaelic kingdom that covered most of modern Cavan and Leitrim, between Ulster to the north and Connacht to the west. From the thirteenth century it was split in two: West Breifne, the Leitrim country of the O'Rourkes, and East Breifne, the Cavan country of the O'Reillys. Cúil Bhríghde lay inside East Breifne, so the MacBrady chiefs lived in the O'Reilly world, alongside other Cavan families such as the MacGoverns of Tullyhaw in the northwest of the county.
Within that world the MacBradys were landholders of real standing. The Dictionary of Irish Biography speaks of "the high status of the MacBradys in Gaelic society," and their name turns up again and again in church records and in the poetry of the county. Cavan and Brady have been linked ever since; Brady is still one of the defining surnames of the county.
Did the Bradys Serve the Church as Well as the Chiefs?
They did, and in striking numbers. MacLysaght counted three MacBrady bishops of Kilmore, the Cavan diocese, and one MacBrady bishop of Ardagh. The line ran from the late Middle Ages to the Reformation era: Tomás Mac Brádaigh was bishop of Kilmore from 1480 until his death in 1511, and Richard Brady held Kilmore from 1580 until 1607, through the worst years of the Tudor wars.
The family kept its place in the parishes long after the bishops. Fr Terence Brady was parish priest of Drung from 1749 to 1768, in the heart of the old MacBrady country. Church and family were bound together in Gaelic Ireland, and Cavan's parish registers, from Drung and Larah to Kildallan, are full of Bradys.
The same pattern runs through the neighboring families. The Reilly family ruled East Breifne, and the Reilly story is the frame for the Brady one. The Moore family, the Ó Mórdha of Laois, is another midland Gaelic family whose story of survival through plantation and dispossession runs parallel to the Brady experience.
Which Brady Poets Wrote in Irish?
Two MacBradys hold a place in Irish-language literature. Philip Mac Brádaigh (c.1650–c.1719), born probably to the west of Cootehill, was ordained a Catholic priest and had conformed to the established church by 1682, serving as vicar of Kildallan from 1691 to 1704. Known as 'Philip Ministir' or 'Parson Brady', he wrote comic and serious verse, including a poem in praise of brandy and, most likely, a welcome to the harper Turlough Carolan.
Fiachra Mac Brádaigh (c.1690–c.1760) was a schoolmaster at Stradone who spent his life in the parish of Drung. His light, songlike poems in everyday Cavan Irish include romantic and fairy verses, two of which were printed in the Anthologia Hibernica in the 1790s. Between them, the parson and the schoolmaster show that Cúil Bhríghde remained a place of Irish learning long after the old lordship was gone.
How Did the Plantation of Ulster Affect the Brady Family?
The Tudor conquest broke the Gaelic order that had sustained the MacBrady chiefs. After the Flight of the Earls in 1607, Cavan was one of the counties taken into the Plantation of Ulster from 1610, and much of its land passed to English and Scottish planters and to a small number of favored native landholders. English common law replaced Brehon law and the old lordships lost their legal footing.
The people stayed. Brady families held on as tenants across the same parishes, and by the time of the Tithe Applotment Books of the 1820s and 1830s and Griffith's Valuation in the 1850s the name was spread thickly across Cavan. Researchers should note that the so-called 1659 census, often used for seventeenth-century surnames, does not cover County Cavan at all, so for that period the landholding records and church sources matter more.
Which Notable People Have Carried the Brady Name?
Thomas Brady (1752–1827) was born in Cootehill and sent to Vienna to study for the priesthood. He came to the notice of the Empress Maria Theresa, took a commission in the Austrian army and won the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa in the Turkish war. He rose to Feldzeugmeister, general of artillery, became Baron von Brady, and served as civil and military governor of Dalmatia and Albania in 1804. His will endowed scholarships at Vienna's engineering academy for Irish-born Catholic students, which were still being awarded in the 1960s.
Nicholas Brady (1659–1726), born at Bandon in County Cork, was a Church of Ireland clergyman and poet. With Nahum Tate he wrote the New Version of the Psalms of David (1696), which replaced the old metrical psalter in many English churches, and he wrote the ode Hail! Bright Cecilia, set to music by Henry Purcell.
Where Are Brady Families Found in the World Today?
Irish emigration carried the name across the Atlantic and beyond in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Great Famine of 1845 to 1852 hit Cavan hard, and Brady families left in large numbers for the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia. In America they settled along the eastern seaboard and in the industrial cities of the Midwest, and the name became a familiar one in Irish-American civic life.
Researchers tracing a Brady line abroad will most often find Cavan as the county of origin, with Meath, Longford and Westmeath close behind. Wherever it appears, Brady is recognized at once as an Irish name, the legacy of a family rooted in the drumlin country of east Cavan.
How Can I Research My Brady Ancestors?
- IrishGenealogy.ie: civil birth, marriage and death records from the state registers, searchable by name and registration district such as Cavan, Bailieborough or Cootehill.
- National Archives of Ireland census: the 1901 and 1911 returns show every Brady household by townland, with ages, occupations and religion.
- Griffith's Valuation: the mid-nineteenth-century land survey lists Brady occupiers across Cavan townlands, the best substitute for the lost earlier censuses.
- National Library of Ireland Catholic parish registers: free online images of baptisms and marriages, including Cavan parishes such as Drung, Larah and Kildallan.
- PRONI: useful for Brady families who moved into the northern counties and for Ulster estate papers that include Cavan tenants.
- logainm.ie: the place-names database gives the Irish form and location of every townland, such as Sraith an Domhain for Stradone.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Brady Name
What does the name Brady mean?
Brady is from Mac Brádaigh, 'son of Brádach'. Woulfe gives the meaning of Brádach as 'spirited'.
Are Brady and MacBrady the same name?
Yes. MacBrady keeps the Mac of the Gaelic Mac Brádaigh; Brady is the same name with the prefix dropped, the form most families use today.
Is the Irish form Mac Brádaigh or Ó Brádaigh?
Mac Brádaigh is the historic form of the Cavan family. Ó Brádaigh is a rarer variant, anglicized O'Brady, and some Irish speakers use it today.
Which county is the Brady name from?
County Cavan. The MacBrady lordship of Cúil Bhríghde lay around Stradone and Drung, east of Cavan town, and Cavan remains the county most closely tied to the name.
Were the Bradys a Gaelic sept?
Yes. The MacBradys were a Gaelic family of East Breifne with their own chief, lands and churchmen, whose lordship lay inside the O'Reilly kingdom of East Breifne.
Is there a Brady Irish Family Crest?
Yes. Our Brady and MacBrady Irish Family Crest designs set the family shield on the Irish National Tartan across blankets, mugs, flags and ornaments.
Bring the story of Cúil Bhríghde home with a woven blanket, a mug or a garden flag from our Brady and MacBrady Irish family gifts collection.