Will the real Lord Mayo please stand up?

Edwin McGreal

Could there be a modern day Lord Mayo in our midst?
The debate surrounding the title Viscount Mayo remains unresolved to this day, according to information discovered by author Anne Chambers for her new biography, ‘Lord Mayo’, released this month.

Focusing on the first Lord Mayo, Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke, son of the Pirate Queen, Gráinne Uaile, Chambers explores the fascinating title controversy that erupted over 130 years after Tibbott’s death in 1629. It is an engaging tale of claims, counter-claims, religious differences and long legal battles.
It all started with the death of John Bourke, the eighth Viscount Mayo in 1767. As he had no sons, a battle began for the title, and David Bourke, a Catholic freeholder from Asgalan (modern day Askillaun, outside Louisburgh) in the Barony of Murrisk, won out.
David Bourke made his claim on the basis of being the next male heir in direct descent from Richard Bourke, fourth and youngest son of Tibbott-ne-Long, the first Viscount Mayo and son of Gráinne Uaile (‘Lord’ being the way viscounts are addressed).
“David Bourke’s claim was supported by sworn depositions from numerous people who knew him as well as those from relations and friends of the last Viscount, which I discovered in a long-forgotten file in the Genealogical Office in Dublin,” explained Anne Chambers.
However, his claim was opposed by the 8th Viscount’s son-in-law, Edmund Lambert, on the grounds that Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke, the first Viscount Mayo, had just three sons. Anne Chambers said her research discovered this was not the case.
“From my research among contemporary records of the period, including the official notice registered at Athlone Castle of the death of the first Viscount Mayo in 1629, it was clear that Richard Bourke was the youngest son of the first Viscount and David Bourke his surviving legal descendant.
“Because of David Bourke’s perceived unsuitability by the government of the day, by virtue of his background, education and religion and despite the extensive evidence supporting his claim, in 1780 the Viscount Mayo title was deemed extinct in the male line by the authorities. David Bourke died without a male heir in Dublin in 1790 while pursuing his claim to the title through the courts,” she added.
Anne Chambers hopes a modern-day claimant to the title may exist.
Miles and Stephen Bourke, also direct descendants of Richard Bourke, the fourth son of Tibbott-ne-Long, first Viscount Mayo, were living in the Aughagower area into the early decades of the 19th century. The Famine has made tracing that lineage difficult.
However, perhaps a contemporary Bourke – and there are plenty of them in Mayo today – might be able to trace their roots back to Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke and lay claim to the title Viscount Mayo.

Machiavellian time
In the course of her decades-long research into Lord Mayo, Anne Chambers got exclusive access to the vault at Westport House in the 1980s, which shed new light on the story.
She first brought out a biography on Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke, entitled Shadowlord, in 2007. ‘Lord Mayo’, published by Mayo Books Press, is a new edition with a considerable amount of updated information.
Chambers describes Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke as ‘one of the forgotten major characters in Irish history’.
“He is forgotten because he didn’t conform to what later generations of Irish historians set out to make as heroes. The fact that he actually managed to become the largest landowner in Mayo at the time of his death in 1629 I think really shows what a Machiavellian mind he was and he was up against very much a Machiavellian time.
“With cunning and determination he outmanoeuvred his many competitors, both Irish and English, in an all-consuming passion to survive and prosper in the complex struggle for power and control then obtaining as the Gaelic world of his ancestors collapsed before the English onslaught.
“There was a raw honesty about him that I found fascinating and that he maintained the loyalty of his followers here in Mayo, acting as a buffer between them and the advancing English planters, right to the end of his life, says a lot about him,” said Chambers.

‘Lord Mayo – Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke, Son of the Pirate Queen, 1567-1629’ is published by Mayo Books Press and is available in local stockists and online at mayobooks.ie.