Henry Bruen

Who was Henry Bruen?

Colonel Henry Bruen was an Irish Tory Party politician. He was Member of Parliament for Carlow County for a total of about 36 years, in three separate periods between 1812 and 1852, taking his seat in the House of Commons of what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Bruen was elected at the 1812 general election as MP for Carlow county, and was then returned unopposed at the next three general elections. He won a contested election in 1830, but did not stand at the 1831 general election. He stood again in 1832, but did not win either of Carlow's two seats. He regained a seat at the general election in January 1835, but the 1835 election in Carlow was overturned on petition, and Bruen lost his seat in the resulting by-election in 15 June. However, the by-election was itself the subject of a petition, and the result was overturned, with Bruen being returned to Westminster, along with his father-in-law, fellow Conservative Thomas Kavanagh.

He did not win a seat in 1837, but returned to the House of Commons in 1840, when he won a by-election on 5 December after the death of the Liberal MP Nicholas Aylward Vigors.