[citation needed] The family of Verschoyle (Verschuyl) were Dutch Huguenots who emigrated from the Spanish Netherlands to Ireland in 1568, having suffered from religious persecution.
The family coat of arms features three boars heads on a chevron, with the motto Temperans et Constans, which roughly translates as "steadfast and constrained".
According to the pedigree in Gens Van Der Scuylen, 600 years of Verschoyle history, with information added from Burke's Landed Gentry, the following lineage is described: Early in the 17th century two of the name said to be brothers, Henrik and William, were resident in Dublin.
Henrik Verschoyle, of Thomas Street, Dublin; married Judith, to whom he devised a share of his goods jointly with his two children (listed below), and died 1623.
Under normal rules, the eldest child or next in line for the title is styled one below in the peerage rank from the father, hence her status as countess.
As he was born at a period when Ireland was still under British rule, he technically would have been a Freeman of the City of Dublin, through descent, had this continued to be the case when he was 18.
His life partner Kathleen was born on 16 February 1922, the daughter of a farmer, at Cloonkeen, County Mayo, Ireland, and died on 20 May 2002.