Richard "the Iron" Bourke

Bourke was a son of David de Búrca, 15th Mac William Íochtar, by his second wife, Finola Ni Flaithbertaigh. He succeeded his cousin, Seaán mac Oliver (John) Bourke, 17th Mac William Íochtar (d.1580), a great-grandson of Ricard Ó Cuairsge Bourke, 7th Mac William Íochtar (d.1479).

In English, he was known as Richard Bourke, or "Iron Richard". In medieval Ireland, Richard was a rare name, most found in Norman-origin families like the Bourkes. Richard was second husband to Grace O'Malley. He was the father of several children, including Tibbot ne Long Bourke, 1st Viscount Mayo (23rd Mac William Íochtar).

During the uneven anglicisation of Ireland in the 1500s, by the policy of "Surrender and regrant", Richard signed an agreement with the Crown in 1581 which uniquely left him in autonomous control of his part of County Mayo.^[2]

Richard was succeeded, as Mac William Íochtar, by his predecessor's brother, Richard Bourke, 19th Mac William Íochtar (d.1586).^[3]

• House of Burgh, an Anglo-Norman and Hiberno-Norman dynasty founded in 1193

• Burke, Bernard (1884). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; comprising a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time. University of California Libraries. London: Harrison & Sons.
• Knox, Hubert T. (1908). The History of the County of Mayo to the close of the sixteenth century. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis and Company. p. 395.
• 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.
  • Lower Mac William and Viscounts of Mayo, 1332-1649, pp. 235–36.
• "Burke (de Burgh), Sir Richard (Risdeard an Iarainn, Richard an Iron, 'Iron Dick') | Dictionary of Irish Biography". www.dib.ie. Retrieved 21 December 2021.