Larry O'Brien
From:	AVC222@aol.com
Sent:	Wednesday, August 11, 1999 7:40 PM
To:	lpobrien@intranet.ca
Subject:	Re: Breens and O'Briens in Wexford
Larry,
I received information about the Yola people from the Yola farm in Wexford.  
It is the heritage center there.  
http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/Geneal/Wexford.htm   If you email them they will 
send you a brochure with the history of the Yola people and documents for a 
search on whomever you are looking for.  There is a small history online at 
their site and the county of Wexford site. There were waves of conquering 
peoples who came through Wexford up the river.  In one of the documents they 
sent me they said that in 1169 a group of mercenaries led by a group of 
Anglo-Norman knights landed in the south east of Ireland led by Strongbow.  
"Strongbow married Dermot's daugher and inter-marriage between the invaders 
and the indigenous Irish became common as did the exchange and interchange of 
languages, laws and customs, until they became more Irish than the Irish.  
Hence the Yola people with their own unique language and customs.   The Yola 
people have roots of French, Flemish, Danish, English and Welsh origin, mixed 
with indigenous Irish and have names such as......O'Brain (Breen)."  
The brochure lists dozens of names but lists Breen in parentheses after 
O'Brain.  Sherlock is another name listed in parentheses after Scurlock for 
what it is worth.  It appears O'Brain and Breen are interchangeable. (?) It 
does not list O'Brien specifically.  The researchers at the Yola site might 
be able to give you more direction on it.   
 My husband went to Norway last year and brought back various brochures in 
Norwegian.  This was at the same time I was actively researching the name and 
I was surprised to see "bree" and "breen" listed in them.  (Notice on the 
Wexford Map online at the Wexford or Diocese of Ferns site (there are links 
back and forth) that there is a town or parish of Bree in Wexford although in 
one place it was spelled Breen.) I asked a Norwegian woman I know about the 
meaning of the word and she told me bree was Norwegian for glaciar or ice and 
the suffix n or en meant from the ice or glaciar.  Breen she said would mean 
in Norwegian from the ice or glaciar.   I am making an assumption putting 
together the fact that Breens are considered Yola People with the Norwegian 
word from the ice. ( What is coincidental or downright wierd is that my 
Breens settled in Jericho and Underhill Vermont which are above Burlington 
Vermont in the foot hills of Mount Mansfield making them people still of the 
ice.)   
So what do you think? Does the assumption hold water ...er ice?
 Vickie