Burke Civil War

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The Burke/de Burgh Civil War was a conflict in Ireland in the 1330s between three leading members of the de Burgh (Burke/Bourke) Anglo-Norman family.

Background[]

Twenty-year-old William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster, the Brown Earl, was murdered by his household knights in June 1333 after he had starved his cousin and rival Sir Walter Liath de Burgh to death the previous year. His only child, Elizabeth de Burgh (1332–1363), succeeded as Countess of Ulster and legal heir to the de Burgh estate as an infant. For safety as an infant, and a female heiresss, she was taken by her mother to England as her lordships collapsed in a power struggle.

Three members of the de Burgh family fought against each other in an attempt to preserve their own personal estates, and hold overall control of the massive de Burgh inheritance in Ireland. They were:

• Sir Edmond de Burgh of Castleconnell, only surviving uncle of the Brown Earl and senior member of the de Burgh dynasty.
• Sir Edmond Albanach de Burgh of north Connacht, brother of the Walter Liath de Burgh who died in 1332 and a cousin of the Brown Earl and Sir Edmond of Castleconnell. He drowned the latter in Lough Mask in 1338.
• Sir Uilleag de Burgh of south Connacht, chief of an illegitimate branch of the de Burghs.

Loss and divisions[]

The eventual outcome of the war was the loss of almost all the de Burgh lands in Ulster, which was reconquered within a year by the Gaelic-Irish.

The remaining de Burghs in Ireland fragmented into three distinct clans, all of which had several sub-septs. They were:

• of County Limerick
• Mac William Íochtar of County Mayo
• Mac William Uachtar/Clanricarde Burke of County Galway

Clan William, Mac William, Clanricarde[]

References[]

• A New History of Ireland, volume IX, Oxford, 1984;
  • Earls of Ulster and Lords of Connacht, 1205-1460 (De Burgh, De Lacy and Mortimer), p. 170;
  • Mac William Burkes: Mac William Iochtar (de Burgh), Lords of Lower Connacht and Viscounts of Mayo, 1332–1649, p. 171;
  • Burke of Clanricard: Mac William Uachtar (de Burgh), Lords of Upper Connacht and Earls of Clanricard, 1332–1722.
• Burke:People and Places, Eamonn de Burca, Dublin, 1995.