Ulick de Burgh [5th Earl and Marquis of Clanricarde]

Life
1604-1657; succeeded to earldom, 1635; served Charles II against Scots, 1639; loyalty suspected, 1641; commissioned to meet Irish confederates, 1643; unable to secure terms of Cessation [peace], 1643; appt. commander of forces in Connaught, 1944; raised to Marquis, 1645; attempted to reconcile Irish to Charles, 1646; reduced Galway, 1648; lord deputry in Ireland for Ormonde, Dec. 1650; distrusted by the Irish; capitulated to Parliament, 1652; Clanrickarde Memoirs (London 1722); a 19th-century descendant, Ulick John de Burgh, was created First Marquis.

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Works
Memoirs of the Right Honourable The Marquis of Clanricarde, Lord Deputy General of Ireland, containing Several Original Papers and Letters of King Charles II, Queen Mother, the Duke of York, the Duke of Lorrain, the Marquis of Ormond, Archbishop of Tuam, Lord Viscount Taaffe, &c. relating to the Treaty between the Duke of Lorrain and the Irish Commissioners, from February 1650, to August 1653. Publish’d from his Lordship’s Original MSS. To which is Prefix’d A DISSERTATION, wherein some Passages of these Memoirs are illustrated. With a Digression containing several curious Observations concerning the Antiquities of Ireland. LONDON: Printed for James Woodman, at Camden’s Head, under Will’s Coffee-House, in Bow-Street, Covent-Garden, MDCCXXII [1722].

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References
Hardiman Library (Galway) holds copy of Memoirs of the Right Honourable The Marquis of Clanricarde, Lord Deputy General of Ireland, containing Several Original Papers and Letters of King Charles II, Queen Mother, the Duke of York, the Duke of Lorrain, the Marquis of Ormond, Archbishop of Tuam, Lord Vifcount Taaffe, &c. relating to the Treaty between the Duke of Lorrain and the Irifh Commiffioners, from Februar 1650, to Auguft 1653. Publifh’d from his Lordfhip’s Original MSS. To which is Prefix’d A DISSERTATION, wherein fome Paffages of thefe Memoirs are illuftrated. With a Digreffion containing feveral curious Obfervations concerning the Antiquities of Ireland. LONDON: Printed for James Woodman, at Camden’s Head, under Will’s Coffee-House, in Bow-Street, Covent-Garden, MDCCXXII [1722]; another edn., with slight title-page variation [with a Translation of the latin and French Letters], and variant imprint details: Dublin: printed by S. Powell, for C. Connor [viz., Charles O’Conor of Belanagare], at Pope’s Head ont he Blind-Key, near Effex Gate MDCCXLIV [1744]. Note, The text includes a dissertation on the ‘Seminary, or School of Poetry’, in ancient Ireland [viz., Bardic Schools], pp.cxxxii et seq.; also takes issue with Camden’s account of the origins of the Irish population and language, on the basis that classical history records that islands are not necessarily inhabited by those populations most contiguous to them (i.e., Britain and Gaul). In this and other passages, Clanricarde is clearly engaged in the valorisation of ancient Irish culture.

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Quotations
‘The Action and Pronounciation of the Poem in the Presence … of the Principal person it related to, was performed with a great deal of Ceremony, in a Consort of Vocal and iNstrumental Musick. The poet himself said nothing, but directed and took care, that everybody else did his aprt right. The bards having first had the Composition from him, got it well by heart, and now pronounced in orderly, keeping even pace with a Harp, touch’d upon that Occasion; no other musical instrument being allowed of for the said purpose than this alone.’ (Quoted in Seán Ó Baoil, ‘Irish Traditional Music’, in Michael Longley, ed., Causeway: The Arts in Ulster, 1971, p.118.)

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Notes
Frank O’Connor, The Backward Look: A Survey Of Irish Literature (London: Macmillan 1967), cites Osborn J. Bergin’s lecture on bardic poetry and the survival of ancient practices, which makers reference to the Memoirs of Marquis of Clanricarde (1722).

Robert Welch quotes Memoirs of the Marquis of Clanricarde as source of statements deemed to be quite accurate about bardic poets and their abilities as retailed by Yeats in his preface to Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902), viz., ‘a chief poet had to understand not only innumberable kinds of poetry, but how to keep himself for nine days in a trace’ (Yeats, p.330); see Welch, ed., W. B. Yeats, Writings on Irish Folklore, Legend, and Myth (Penguin 1993), p.xxvi.

Posterity?: See John Conwell, A Galway Landlord During the Famine: Ulick John de Burgh, First Marquis of Clanricarde (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2003), 64pp.

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