Tibbot na Long Bourke, 1st Viscount Mayo

Tibbot na Long Bourke, 1st Viscount Mayo (anglicised as Theobald Bourke; English: /bɜːrk/; BURK; 1567 – 18 June 1629) was an Irish peer and parliamentarian. A prominent member of the MacWilliam Burkes of County Mayo, Tibbot was a Member of the Irish House of Commons and was later created the first Viscount Mayo. His successful life followed, and usefully illustrates, the difficult transition for Irish aristocrats from the traditional Gaelic world during the Tudor conquest of Ireland.
Bourke's name had varying spellings such as "Teabóid" or "Tepóitt" in medieval Irish. Tibbot derived from Thibault, the French for Theobald; and "na Long" meant "of the ships", as he was born on a ship. This was usually rendered in Tudor English as: Tibbott or Tibbot na Long.
Tibbot's Irish ancestors started with William de Burgh who was granted the overlordship of Connacht in 1215 by John Lackland. William's son Richard (d.1243) took actual possession of much of the province in the 13th century. His descent then divided their lands into:
These branches held their lands against Gaelic and Norman opponents in the following centuries and were typical of the Hiberno-Norman families who intermarried locally and had adopted Gaelic culture by the 1400s (see Gaelic Resurgence).
His mother was the pirate queen Gráinne O'Malley (1530–1603) and his father was Richard "the Iron" Bourke, 18th Mac William Íochtar (d.1583), who was her second husband, and a senior member of the Lower MacWilliam Burke clan. Both parents owned lands along the west coast of County Mayo. Tibbot was born at sea, supposedly just before his mother's fleet engaged in a sea battle with Barbary pirates.
Tibbot married Maeve, daughter of Donal/Domnhnall O'Conor Sligo, in 1585, and they had eight children.
From 1541 the new Kingdom of Ireland founded by Henry VIII attempted to involve and include the self-governing chiefdoms by the process of surrender and regrant. After the first Desmond Rebellion (1569–76) the Dublin administration decided to apply the process in Connacht to the autonomous chiefs such as the Lower MacWilliam Bourke, but with considerable difficulty. By this stage the clan owned most of the western half of County Mayo. In contrast, an Upper MacWilliam cousin in County Galway had been created Earl of Clanricarde in 1543.
In 1576 Tibbot's mother submitted to Sir Henry Sidney, the lord deputy, in respect of her own lands. However, in the Lower MacWilliam Burke clan Risteard an Iarainn was the tanist, elected by the clan as the next heir to the current chief, Shane Burke. If the clan adopted surrender and regrant, Richard would lose his expected chieftainship, and Shane's son would inherit under the English-law doctrine of primogeniture. Richard therefore sided with the Earl of Desmond, then Sidney's main opponent, while his wife Grace plundered Desmond's lands with her fleet of ships in 1577 and was taken prisoner by him until 1579.
In November 1580 Richard made a favourable peace with Grey, the next lord deputy, having mustered a show of force. At the time Grey was fully engaged in crushing the Second Desmond Rebellion. Richard was now recognised as an autonomous clan chief by the Crown, uniquely without having to adopt surrender and regrant, in a deed dated 16 April 1581.
By 1585 Grace was ruling the Lower MacWilliam Burke lordship with Tibbot, now aged 19. That year the next lord deputy, Sir John Perrott, decided to secure the province in the "Composition of Connaught" and Tibbot was taken hostage to ensure Grace's compliance with the Composition. While a prisoner Tibbot learnt English and married Maeve, daughter of Donal O'Conor Sligo.
In 1586 the Lower MacWilliam clan remained divided over Perrott's opinion on the clan succession. Tibbot was freed by Richard Bingham to help Perrott's policy, but joined in the rebellion. By 1587 he sought a truce, followed by another rebellion in 1589 and a final peace in March 1590. By this point he was the recognised clan chief, and accepted the terms of the composition, paying his arrears of chief rent to the Crown.
However, on the escape of Red Hugh O'Donnell from Dublin Castle in 1592, Tibbot raised Mayo in his support. His attacks on Bingham's force were beaten off, no promised Spanish help arrived and O'Donnell sued for peace. Tibbot "was left high and dry" by O'Donnell, but was granted another pardon.
On the approach to the Nine Years' War in early 1593, conflict had broken out between the Presidency of Connaught and Hugh Roe O'Donnell of Tyrconnell and Brian Óg O'Rourke of West Breifne. In a letter to O'Rourke, Tibbot vowed to raise an army in Mayo which could coordinate with the rebellious kings of Ulster, if O'Rourke could keep up his war against Bingham for another month. This led to Tibbot's arrest in May 1593 and he was held at Athlone. His mother Grace visited Queen Elizabeth in London in June 1593 and obtained his release. Tibbot agreed to fight some of his Burke cousins who were rebelling, while his son Miles was held as a hostage by Bingham.
In April 1594 Grace visited Elizabeth again, and finally secured favourable terms of surrender and regrant for Tibbot. The timing of this visit subsequently made a huge difference to him, as the Nine Years' War was starting; as a result The O'Donnell arranged in 1595 for another MacWilliam Burke cousin, Tibbot Kittagh, to replace him as clan chief. Tibbot soon regained his position in Mayo, and unsurprisingly would not join O'Donnell and his main ally Hugh O'Neill in the war. He initially assisted the English government under Clifford, before taking a less active role in the war. Clifford was then totally defeated in 1599 at the Battle of Curlew Pass. While the rebels marched south to their eventual defeat at Kinsale in 1601, he embarked 300 men into three ships, sailed south, and kept both sides guessing who he would help.
In 1603 James I succeeded Elizabeth and O'Neill submitted to the terms of the Treaty of Mellifont. The following year he was knighted, styled as "Sir Tibbot ne Longe Bourke". For the first time Ireland was completely under English control. After the Flight of the Earls in 1607, Tibbot was accused of plotting to help them, and was arrested again in 1608; this proved unfounded. In 1610 he was again under suspicion, as the administration intercepted letters from Spain hoping to implicate him in a revolt; yet again he was pardoned.
He also represented the smaller local clans in their property registration dealings with the Dublin administration, but seems to have ended up with most of their lands by his death. His own tenants paid rent in kind under the metayage system, known in Ireland as "cuttings and spendings", delivering him about a quarter or third of each crop. Given the wet Irish climate, this method was probably more realistic than expecting a fixed cash rent. His son Miles received such an annual rent from Murrisk in 1633: £3 in cash, a beef animal, 40 quarts of butter, a basin of meal and a basin of malt.
In 1613–15 Tibbot was one of the two MPs from Mayo in the Parliament of Ireland. Being still Catholic, he voted against the creation of new boroughs for Protestant MPs; the new rules gave Protestants a majority of 108–102 in the Commons.
The Anglo-Spanish War (1625–30) started soon after the accession of Charles I, and yet again he and his son Miles were charged with planning a Spanish-supported Catholic revolt, and were cleared. Soon after this he was created the 1st Viscount Mayo in June 1627, with his first name by now given as Theobald. In 1628 he and other Catholic nobles started a petition campaign to persuade King Charles to reform some anti-Catholic laws, known as "The Graces". He died on 18 June 1629 and was buried at Ballintubber Abbey.
While Tibbot remained Catholic, he ensured that for political reasons his son Miles conformed to the Anglican church and was educated at Oxford University, while his other children remained Catholic.
Tibbot married in 1585 to Maeve/Maud, daughter of Charles O'Conor Sligo, who d. 1636. They had several daughters and four sons:
Miles's descendants ran down to the 8th viscount, who died in 1767. Thereafter three of Richard's descendants were potential claimants until 1814, but never took their seats in parliament.
David Murphy, a native of County Mayo, is one of two men credited by Captain Francis O'Neill with composing the air, An Tighearna Mhaigheo/Lord Mayo (the other being Thady Ó Cianáin).
O'Neill gives this account of its composition: