Milmo family genealogy

Arms: Gu. a lion ramp. ar.

SOME Genealogists derive this family from Maol-na-mBo ("maol:" Irish, the devotee; "na-mBo," of the cows or cattle), who is No. 110 on the "MacMorough" genealogy; and a quo O'Maoilmbo. Of this Irish sirname Mildmay is considered another anglicised form.

The Milmo family, after the English invasion of Ireland, settled in Connaught, and intermarried with (among others) the ancient families of "O'Dowd," and "Crean," in the co. Sligo.

The Venerable Archdeacon O'Rorke, in his "Ballisadare and Kilvarnet, county Sligo," mentions that the "Milmo" family is one of the oldest and most respectable families in the parish of Ballisadare. Of this family is Don Patricio Milmo, of Mexico, who was born in Collooney, in the county Sligo; and who in his youth, went to Mexico to a rich unmarried uncle, who helped his nephew to lay the foundation of his present colossal fortune.

One of Don Patricio Milmo's brothers was a Prize man of the Catholic University, Dublin, in 1856; and another brother, Daniel Milmo, was in 1883 head of the "Milmo National Bank," in Laredo, Texas.

Don Patricio m. the dau. of the celebrated Mexican statesman General Vidaurri, who, taking sides with Maximilian, shared that Emperor's unhappy fate. As an instance of warm attachment to Faith and Fatherland, for which his fathers suffered so much, it is mentioned that this good Irishman Don Patricio (or Patrick) Milmo had his eldest son educated in Dublin under a Catholic professor; and has also taken from the Irish capital a Catholic governess for his daughters; while, during the late famine in Ireland, the said Patrick Milmo sent a handsome donation to the Priests of his native county, for distribution among the distressed.

It is to the realms of fiction that one must look for counterparts to the careers of some of our scattered Irish exiles; for, the lives of not a few of them have even eclipsed in romantic and adventurous elements any of the "forms" that imagination has ever bodied forth. Scarcely a year passes without our meeting some record of a wonderful achievement by one or other of poor Ireland's "Wild Geese," in some distant land. The life of the honoured subject of this paper is such a one; for Mr. Patrick Milmo, of Mexico, is eminently one of our countrymen who, in exile, have shed lustre on their Nation and their Race.