Alan Brooke was born in 1883 at Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Hautes-Pyrénées, to a prominent Anglo-Irish family from West Ulster in Ireland with a long military tradition as the "Fighting Brookes of Colebrooke". He was the seventh and youngest child of Sir Victor Brooke, 3rd Baronet, of Colebrooke Park, Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, Ulster, Ireland, and the former Alice Bellingham, second daughter of Sir Alan Bellingham, 3rd Baronet, of Castle Bellingham in County Louth. Brooke was educated at a day school in Pau, France, where he lived until the age of 16; he was bi-lingual in French (which he spoke with a heavy Gascon accent) and English. He spoke both French and English very fast, leading some Americans to distrust a "fast-talking Limey". He was also fluent in German, and had learnt Urdu and Persian.