Burke Civil War

The Burke/de Burgh Civil War was a conflict in Ireland from 1333 to 1338 between three leading members of the de Burgh (Burke/Bourke) Anglo-Norman family resulting in the division into three clans.

Twenty-year-old William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster, known as "the Brown Earl", was murdered by his household knights in June 1333 after he had starved to death his cousin and rival Sir Walter Liath de Burgh in the previous year (1332). The Earl's only child, Elizabeth de Burgh (1332–1363), succeeded as Countess of Ulster and legal heir to the de Burgh estates as an infant. For safety, as an infant and a female heiress, she was taken by her mother to England as her lordships collapsed in a power struggle.^[1][2]

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) who drowned in Lough Mask in 1338.
• Sir Edmond Albanach de Burgh of north Connacht (cousin of the Brown Earl, brother of the Walter Liath de Burgh who died in 1332)
• Sir Uilleag de Burgh of south Connacht (chief of the Burkes of Galway)

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.^[3][4]

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

• Clan William Bourke of County Limerick
• Mac William Íochtar (Bourke) of County Mayo
• Mac William Uachtar or Clanricarde (Burke / de Burgh) of County Galway

• House of Burgh
• Clanricarde
• Mac William Íochtar

• Bourke, Eamonn (1995). Burke: People and Places. Whitegate and Castlebar: Ballinakilla Press and de Búrca Rare Books. ISBN 0-946130-10-8.
• Moody, T. W.; Martin, F. X.; Byrne, F. J., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland: IX: Maps, Genealogies, Lists, A Companion to Irish History, Part II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959306-4.
  • 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, p. 172.