Power
also le Poer, de Paor, Poer
The Decies of Waterford — Norman barons since 1170, still resident.
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The seat of Power
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Current mission
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Stake your name →What does the Power name mean?
From Old French le Poher / le Pohier — 'the man from Poix' (Poix-de-Picardie, Somme). The Power family came to Ireland with Strongbow in 1170 and were granted extensive lands in the Decies of Waterford. They Gaelicised within two generations — de Paor was the Irish form — and retained their Waterford patrimony almost continuously from the 12th century to the present, an unusual feat of Norman territorial persistence in Ireland.
The history of Power
Robert le Poer was the first of the Anglo-Normans to receive substantial land in the south-east, granted the Decies (an Déise, the eastern half of modern Waterford) by Strongbow before 1175. The Powers held it as feudal barons for the next four centuries; the senior line was elevated to the peerage as Barons le Poer of Curraghmore in 1535, and by marriage in 1717 the title and Curraghmore estate passed by inheritance to the de la Poer Beresfords, who hold it still as Marquesses of Waterford. Curraghmore House outside Portlaw is the only Norman-era Irish family seat in continuous habitation by the male-line descendants of the original 12th-century grantee — eight and a half centuries on the same ground.
The Power family was central to the Anglo-Norman 'Old English' Catholic interest in Munster through the 17th century, and many cadet Power lines were dispossessed in the Cromwellian and Williamite confiscations. The Catholic Powers of Tramore were the family of Tyrone Power (1797–1841), the comic actor, his great-grandson the Hollywood film star Tyrone Power (1914–1958), and the Quaker-born Powers of John's Lane in Dublin — distillers of Power's Irish whiskey from 1791, one of the four classic Dublin pot-still distilleries.
Ronan O'Gara, the Munster rugby player, is from a Cork-Power line on his maternal side. The Power surname is densest today in Waterford, exactly where the family was settled in 1175 — one of the longest-stable surname-to-county anchorings in Irish demography.
Notable bearers of the Power name
- Robert le Poer (12th c.) — first Norman baron of the Decies
- Tyrone Power (1797–1841) — comic actor
- Tyrone Power (1914–1958) — Hollywood film actor
- Sir John Power, 1st Baronet (1771–1855) — distiller, founder of Power's Whiskey