Sir Uilleag (Ulick) de Burgh (Burke), 1st Clanricarde or Mac William Uachtar was an Irish chieftain and noble who was leader of one of the three factions who fought the Burke Civil War in the 1330s. By the end of the conflict he had established himself and his descendants as Clanricarde, also known as Mac William Uachtar, independent lords of Galway. He was succeeded by his son, Richard Óg Burke, 2nd Clanricarde (d.1387).
Clanricarde, also known as Mac William Uachtar or the Galway Burkes, were a fully Gaelicised branch of the Hiberno-Norman House of Burgh who were important landowners in Ireland from the 13th to the 20th centuries.
Ulick na gCeann Burke, 12th Clanricarde or Mac William Uachtar, 1st Earl of Clanricarde was an Irish noble and son of Richard Mór Burke, 9th Clanricarde (d.1530) by a daughter of Madden of Portumna.
Portumna is a market town in the south-east of County Galway, Ireland, on the border with and linked by a bridge to County Tipperary. The town is located to the west of the point where the River Shannon enters Lough Derg. This historic crossing point over the River Shannon between counties Tipperary and Galway has a long history of bridges and ferry crossings. On the south-western edge of the town lie Portumna Castle and Portumna forest park.
Frances Burke, Countess of Clanricarde and Dowager Countess of Essex was an English noblewoman. The daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, she became the wife of Sir Philip Sidney at age 16. Her second husband was Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Devereaux Earl of Essex, with whom she had five children. Two years after his execution in 1601, she married Richard Burke, Earl of Clanricarde, and went to live with him in Ireland.
Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde was an Irish nobleman and politician.
Ballymore Castle in Lawrencetown, County Galway, Ireland was originally a 15th-century tower house belonging to O'Madden. A house was added in 1620, and the castle has been much altered since then.
In Ireland at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, the fortified house, along with the stronghouse, developed as a replacement for the tower house. 'Fortified Houses' were often rectangular, or sometimes U or L-shaped, three-storey structures with high gables and chimney stacks and large windows with hood mouldings. Some examples have square towers at the corners. The interiors were relatively spacious with wooden partitions and numerous fireplaces. In a number of cases 'Fortified Houses' were built onto pre-existing tower houses. 'Fortified Houses' were protected by gun fire from the angle towers and bartizans, and were also provided with bawn walls with gunloops, towers and protected gateways. 'Fortified Houses' were built throughout Ireland by large landowners from a variety of backgrounds, such as the Old English Earl of Clanricarde who built Portumna Castle in County Galway; Gaelic lords such as MacDonogh MacCarthy, Lord of Duhallow, who built Kanturk Castle in County Cork; and Cromwellian soldiers such as Sir Charles Coote, who built Rush Hall in County Offaly.
Over the past six decades studies concerning Irish 'Fortified Houses' have identified them as a transitional genre that emerged at the end of the sixteenth century and acted as an architectural bridge between the Irish medieval tower-house and the country manor house of the late seventeenth century. The 'Fortified House' drew on the earlier tradition of the tower-house and was influenced by the Tudor and emerging Jacobean architecture from England and the Classical and Military architecture coming from Continental Europe. The social, political and military changes that took place from the 1580s-1650s were to play a major role in the development of this unique Irish structure. These houses provided a comfortable living space for the elite of early seventeenth-century Irish society. They were fashionable yet defendable. The 'Fortified House' was a public display of power and wealth. They represented a long term investment in their owner’s regional future and were monuments to an aspiration for an English and Continental house style suited to local Irish conditions. On a basic level the construction of a 'Fortified House' represented the owners’ desire to modernise and Anglicize.
Ulick Burke, 3rd Earl of Clanricarde, styled Lord Dunkellin until 1582, was an Irish peer who was the son of Richard Burke, 2nd Earl of Clanricarde and Margaret O'Brien.
Richard Burke, 6th Earl of Clanricarde was an Irish peer.
William Burke, 7th Earl of Clanricarde, PC (Ire), was an Irish peer who fought in his youth together with his brother Richard, 6th Earl of Clanricarde under their cousin, Ulick Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde against the Parliamentarians in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. He succeeded his brother as the 7th Earl in 1666.
Richard Burke, 8th Earl of Clanricarde ; styled Lord Dunkellin until 1687; was an Irish peer who served as Custos Rotulorum of Galway.
John Burke, 9th Earl of Clanricarde ; 1642–1722) was an Irish soldier and peer who was a Colonel during the Williamite War in Ireland.
Michael Burke, 10th Earl of Clanricarde, styled Lord Dunkellin until 1722, was an Irish peer who was Governor of Galway (1712) and a Privy Counsellor in Ireland (1726).
John Smith (Burke) de Burgh, 11th Earl of Clanricarde, styled Lord Dunkellin until 1726, was an Irish peer.
Shrule Castle is a ruined tower house near Shrule in County Mayo, Ireland. The castle was built c.1238, near the Black River at the County Mayo and County Galway border by the de Burgh family. It was given to John de Burgh in 1308 by his father Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster.
Honora Burke, married Patrick Sarsfield and went into French exile where he followed her soon afterwards. After his death at the Battle of Landen, she married James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, an illegitimate son of James II. She may have introduced the country dance to the French court.
Pallas Castle is a tower house and National Monument located in County Galway, Ireland.
Portumna Abbey is a medieval Cistercian friary and National Monument located in Portumna, Ireland.
