Burgh

The de Burghs were an Anglo-Norman house that settled in Ireland and became one of its greatest lordly lines. Its founder William de Burgh married a daughter of the king of Thomond and won Connacht lands through campaigns in Munster. His son Richard Mór became Lord of Connacht, and his grandchildren became Earls of Ulster.

The Brown Earl William Donn's infant heiress married Lionel of Antwerp, son of Edward III. Murdered by his knights in 1333, the Brown Earl left an inheritance that collapsed into the Burke Civil War of 1333 to 1338, which produced three Gaelicised clans: the Clanricarde Burkes of Galway, the Mayo Burkes of north Connacht and the Clanwilliam line.

These branches dominated Connacht for three centuries. In 1543 Ulick Burke was made Earl of Clanricarde. The ninth Earl of Clanricarde fought for James II and was captured at Aughrim in 1691; in the eighteenth century the Galway line dropped the surname Burke for the older de Burgh.