The fact that the Bryan family kept a brass of Sir William Bryan (1395) of Seal, near Seven Oaks, in Kent, is not in itself a proof of their ancestry. One school of thought on the subject holds that they were of Irish descent, Bryan being a corruption of Byrne or O’Byrne. If they were in fact descended from an Irish Bryan, it is more than likely that the Bryan in question was a member of the Bryans or Breens of the Duffry near Enniscorthy in Co. Wexford, who were a sub sept of the O'Byrnes of Wicklow. The remnants of this once powerful Gaelic clan still clung to their ancestral lands until as late as 1654.
It is significant that in the family pedigree in Burke’s Landed Gentry it is noted that they descended from one Lewis Bryan who was the father of a John Bryan and the grandfather of another John Bryan. This Lewis, it was stated, had a grant of lands from Thomas the 10th Earl of Ormonde.
It is significant that in the family pedigree in Burke’s Landed Gentry it is noted that they descended from one Lewis Bryan who was the father of a John Bryan and the grandfather of another John Bryan. This Lewis, it was stated, had a grant of lands from Thomas the 10th Earl of Ormonde.
