Background
He was the son of Ulick Burke, 3rd Earl of Clanricarde and Honora Burke, daughter of John Burke.
He was the son of Ulick Burke, 3rd Earl of Clanricarde and Honora Burke, daughter of John Burke.
He actively served Queen Elizabeth I against the hostile Irish and their Spanish allies. The titles of Viscount Galway and Earl of Saint Albans were conferred on him in 1628. By 1633 he was not only one of the principal landowners in Ireland, but virtually all powerful in County Galway.
This aroused the resentment of the Dublin Government, which decided to use the method of empanelling juries to "find" defective titles, in order to recover the lands in question for the English Crown.
The treatment which Lord Clanricarde experienced from the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth, was said to have accelerated his death in November 1635: Strafford however pointed to the Earl"s advancing years and asked sarcastically if he was to blame for a man being over sixty. Edward Butler of Ballinahinch.
He was appointed governor of Connaught, member of the privy council in Ireland, and, in 1624, created Viscount Tunbridge and Baron of Somerhill, a manor which he owned in Kent.