The three-time Academy-Award nominee has taken on a diverse set of roles since he hit our screens in 1981 from a devious vampire to war veteran and rock god. But Cruise mainly gets to play the guy who saves the day, a part he seems tailor-made for.
Trawling back through Cruise’s vast archive of films, you’ll happen upon one particularly memorable role: Joseph Donnelly in Far And Away, which was set in Ireland in the 1800s. After Joseph’s father dies he faces eviction and in desperation attacks his landlord. But it turns out that he wasn’t the only Cruise to stand up to a tyrant landlord.
Tom’s great great great grandfather Patrick Russell Cruise was born in north County Dublin in 1799. He married Teresa Johnson in Warrenstown House, County Meath in 1825. They left Ireland for America that same year and settled in New York.
Patrick had inherited estates in the townlands of Paristown and Dardistown in the Barony of Delvin, County Westmeath. His grandfather had set out the lands to tenants in 1782 for a term of 61 years. This was due to expire in 1843, but Patrick had promised the tenants he would look after them. However, his land-agent back in Ireland had other ideas, and evicted the tenants off his own bat.
Mission impossible
When Patrick heard this he made it his mission to restore the lands to his former tenants. He returned to Ireland and did just that. His tenants were so grateful they even held a public dinner in his honor. Patrick stayed on in Ireland, though sadly only a few years later he became ill and died in the north Dublin suburb of Marino.
Patrick’s daughter Mary Pauline Russell Cruise, who had remained in America when her father came home for his tenants, gave birth to son Thomas O’Mara Jnr in Kentucky in 1876. After his father died, Thomas Jnr assumed the name Thomas Cruise Mapother I. Four generations later, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born in New York in 1962 – better known to us today as movie star Tom Cruise.
Patrick Russell Cruise successfully completed his mission impossible, just as Tom’s character Ethan Hunt somehow always manages to do. Perhaps there was a voice from the past spurring Tom on as he battled the landlord in Far And Away!
Tom’s family history
- Tom Cruise's Irish roots can be traced back 840 years to the arrival of Strongbow in Ireland. The knights in Tom's family were among the first wave of Anglo-Normans to invade Ireland between 1169 and 1176.
- Because the family held land directly of the King, they were royal tenants, and by the early 1200s the de Cruise family were Barons in Ireland.
- Sir Maurice Cruys, a knight who died in 1216, is the direct lineal ancestor of Tom Cruise’s family.
- One of the lands they owned was called Hollywood in north County Dublin.
- They also had land in Meath; the civil parish of Cruicetown (in the parish of Nobber) was named after them.
To find out the full story of Tom's Irish ancestry, researched by Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss, visit Eneclann, the award-winning history and heritage organisation.
To embark on an exciting ancestry adventure of your own, connect with Ireland Family History.