Patrick Browne was born in Woodstock, a little townland just off Claremorris in 1720.

In 1737 he was sent to Antigua to live with some relatives but came back to Europe after two years due to ill health.

He studied medicine, natural history and especially botany at Reims, Paris and Leyden in Holland.

At Leyden, he took a degree of M.D. in 1743 and met the botanist Carl Linnaeus and other eminent naturalists.

Then he moved to London and worked as a physician at St. Thomas's Hospital for two years.

He visited Barbados, Montserrat, Antigua and St. Kitts and, in 1746, he settled in Jamaica as a physician.

He corresponded with the botanist Carl Linnaeus and wrote some articles about venereal diseases and yaws.

He made collections of fauna and flora of the islands.

In 1755, he published a map of Jamaica in London.

The following year, he published his major work “Civil and Natural History of Jamaica”, illustrated by the botanic artist Georg Dionysius Ehret containing new names for 104 genera.

In 1771 he moved back to Claremorris and resided in Rushbrook.

He studied Mayo’s flora and fauna and his botanical foragings included St Patrick’s Cabbage found on Croagh Patrick.

In 1774 the “Exshaw's Magazine” published his catalogues of the birds and fishes of Ireland and in 1788 his short work “Fasciculus Plantarum Hiberniae” appeared in Latin, English and Irish.

He died at Rushbrook on 29th August 1790 and buried at Crossboyne near Claremorris.