Mac William Íochtar


Mac William Íochtar, also known as the Mayo Burkes, were a fully Gaelicised branch of the Hiberno-Norman House of Burke in Ireland. The territory covered much of the northern part of the province of Connacht. The Mac William Íochtar functioned as a regional king and received the White Rod. The title was a successor office to the Lord of Connacht which ended upon the assassination of William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster, in June 1333.

History

As a result of the Burke Civil War of the 1330s, the Lordship of Connacht was split between two opposing factions of the de Burgh family: the Burkes of Mac William Uachtar in southern Connacht and the Mac William Íochtar Burkes of northern Connacht. For over three hundred years, the two families dominated the politics of the province, frequently fighting each other for supreme rule of both the Anglo-Irish and Gaelic-Irish peoples.

List of Mac William Íochtar

In 1594 Tibbot ne Long Bourke, one of the most prominent men in the country, accepted terms of surrender and regrant. In 1627 he was created Viscount Mayo.