Bryan Ricco Cooper
| Bryan Cooper | |
|---|---|
| Teachta Dála | |
|
In office August 1923 – July 1930 |
|
| Constituency | Dublin County |
| Member of Parliament | |
|
In office January 1910 – December 1910 |
|
| Constituency | South Dublin |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
17 June 1884 Simla, India |
| Died | 5 July 1930 (aged 46) County Sligo, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Political party |
Irish Unionist Alliance Independent Cumann na nGaedheal |
| Spouse(s) | 1. 1910 Marion Dorothy Handcock, divorced 1920; 2.1925 Lillian Stella Hewson |
Bryan Ricco Cooper (17 June 1884 – 5 July 1930) was an Irish politician, writer and landowner from Markree Castle, County Sligo. He was prominent in Dáil Éireann in the early years of the Irish Free State, having previously served as MP to Westminster for South Dublin County (1910), a seat he subsequently represented in the Dáil from 1923 to 1930.
The Cooper family, Protestant landlords, had been involved in politics in Sligo since long before the 1800 Act of Union (which Joshua Cooper, a Privy Councillor at the time, strongly opposed). Bryan Cooper's father, Francis, was a major in the British Army stationed at Simla, India, where Bryan was born. His mother was the daughter of another Irishman serving in India, Major-General Maunsel Prendergast, who had married a Swiss woman there. The family returned to Ireland before Bryan was a year old, and then spent several years in postings around Britain, until his father was sent to South Africa at the start of the Second Boer War. Bryan was educated (but not particularly happy) at Eton College. In 1900, his father died during the war of typhoid fever and Bryan inherited Markree from his grandfather Edward Henry Cooper.
Cooper joined the British Army and, following his father's advice, trained as a gunner at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich (1902–03). A fellow-cadet ("R. T. H.") described him as "cheerful, well-mannered and pleasant", but more interested in books than in military matters. He resigned his commission a few years later and returned to Ireland, intending to enter politics – he once said that he entered politics to cure him of his shyness. In his spare time he wrote poetry strongly influenced by Celtic imagery and W. B. Yeats (whom he was later to befriend), and started work on a novel.
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