The Curran Family

(Crest No. 11. Plate 3.)

THE Curran family is descended from Milesius, King of Spain, through the line of his son Heremon. The founder of the family was Brian, son of Eocha Moy Veagon, King of Ireland, A. D. 350. The ancient name was Currain, which means “Knight.”

The possessions of the sept were located in the present County of Clare. A branch of this name was also settled in the County of Leitrim, where they were celebrated as bards and historians.

John Philpot Curran, the famous orator and patriot, was a native of the County of Cork, where he was born in 1750.

His son, Richard Curran, was a man of some eminence in his day and is the author of an excellent biography of his illustrious father.

John Oliver Curran, M. B., born 1819, was a prominent medical practitioner and writer on medical and scientific subjects and a member of the Royal Irish Academy and other literary and scientific societies. When a child of four years a friend twitted him with petting animals and then eating their kind, which made such an impression on him that he remained a vegetarian from that moment until his death. He died of typhus fever in 1847, in his twenty-eighth year.

There are many of the name to-day in Ireland, as also in the United States and the British colonies. The Hon. John J. Curran of Montreal, Canada, is one of the ablest members of the Canadian Cabinet and one of the most eloquent orators in the Dominion. The Hon. M. P. Curran of Boston, Mass., a distinguished journalist and writer, is also a descendant of this distinguished family.