Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Breen, Henry Hegart
BREEN, Henry Hegart, F.S.A., born in Kerry, Ireland, in 1805, is paternally descended from the ancient Irish chiefs of Tyrone, and represents the principal of the Septs, which, as adherents of Hugh O'Neil, were dispossessed of their lands in Ulster, in 1607, by the Government of James I., and banished to Kerry, as the remotest part of Ireland from the place of their birth. On the mother's side he is a near relative of Thomas Moore, the poet, whose father, the son of a Kerry farmer, settled in Dublin in 1775. Mr. Breen was educated at the Grammar Schools of his native county till the age of eighteen, when he was sent to the College of St. Esprit, in Paris, where, during a residence of five years, he studied philosophy, theology, and French literature. In 1829 he settled in the West Indies, and in 1833 was appointed Secretary of the Courts of Justice in the island of St. Lucia, the French language being at that time and for many years after the language of the Courts. In April, 1857, he received the appointment of Administrator of the Government of St. Lucia, which post he held till Oct., 1861. In that capacity he was present in Martinique in August, 1859, at the inauguration of a statue to the Empress Josephine, when he delivered an address in French, for which he received the special thanks of the Emperor Napoleon III.; but the chief incident in his administration was the visit to St. Lucia, in March, 1861, of Prince Alfred, now Duke of Edinburgh. He has written, "St. Lucia, Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive," 1844; "The Diamond Rock and other Poems," 1849; "Modern English Literature: its Blemishes and Defects," 1857; "Warrawarra, the Carib Chief, a Tale of 1770," 2 vols., 1876; and some other works which appeared anonymously. He has also contributed to periodical literature.