conferred on his father's second cousin, the lord chief justice, in 1822, with special remainder to himself. He was in the following year elected an Irish representative peer and during the Duke of Wellington's ministry from 1828 to 1830 held office as clerk of the ordnance. On the retirement of his chief from political life Lord Downes also retired and occupied himself with the ordinary life of a country gentleman He became in due course major general on 10 Jan 1837 lieutenant general on 9 Nov 1846 colonel of the 29th regiment on 15 Aug 1850 full general on 20 June 1854 and was made GCB in 1869 He died at Bert House, Athy, county Kildare, on 26 July 1863 and as he left no male issue his peerage became extinct.
[Royal Military Calendar; Times obituary notice, 30 July 1863.]
BURGH, WALTER de, called Earl of Ulster (d. 1271), was the second son Richard de Burgh (d. 1243), perhaps by his wife Egidia daughter of Walter de Laci, second lord of Meath (Sweetman Cal. of Irish Doc. i. Nos. 2700, 3012; Roberts Fine Rolls, 128). He succeeded to the lordship of Connaught on the death of his brother Richard about 1248 (Sweetman 2865, 3062; Annals of Loch Cé, 383 sub hoc anno). According to later genealogists he was the grandson of Henry II's Irish justiciar, William FitzAldelm, who, in his turn, is said to have been brother or cousin of Hubert de Burgh; but there does not seem to be any contemporary evidence to support either of these statements. It is, however, certain that his father, Richard de Burgh, was nephew to his great English namesake Hubert [q. v.] who was himself justiciar of Ireland in 1232; and that his grandfather, William, is surnamed De Burgh in documents of 4 Henry III, and 7 Ed. I. (Pat Rolls, ap. Book of Howth, 422–3; Sweetman, i. 954, ii. 1548). This William, who is reported to have died in 1205 (Loch Cé, i. 235; Bodley MS. Laud 613, p. 65) was Lord of Connaught; and his son Richard de Burgh, was confirmed in the seignory of the same province by more than one charter of John and Henry III (Sweetman, 653, 1518, &c.)
In November 1249 all the Irish lands of De Burgh were committed to the custody of Peter de Bermingham. Next year, however, the young heir was permitted to pay a fine of three hundred marks apparently for the right of immediate possession. This payment was to be made by half yearly instalments, and De Burgh had to give security that he would not marry without the king's consent (Fine Rolls, 44, 78). He does not however seem to have come of age before 1253, in which year (6 April) part of his lands were still in the king's hands. A month earlier he had been excused his father's debt of 600l due to the Dublin exchequer for a fine of 11½ marks of gold (Sweetman, ii. Nos. 157, 175). From the year 1255 he was engaged in constant expeditions against the natives of Connaught. The chief king of Connaught at this time was Felim O'Conor, whose father, Cathal Crobdherg, had been established on the throne mainly by the aid of De Burgh's grandfather William, to the detriment of Cathal Carrach, who represented the elder branch of the descendants of Roderic O'Conor (Loch Cé, sub anno 1202). Both William and Richard de Burgh had had large possession in Connaught. The latter in especial held the forfeited lands of 'Oethus late king of Connaught,' for a yearly payment of 500 marks, and the service of ten or twenty knights to the king of England Sweetman, i. Nos. 954, 1518; Cal. Pat. Rolls 16b). The estates and perhaps something of the regal claim involved in such a title, descended to De Burgh and help to explain his constant interference in Irish matters.
In 1255 De Burgh made a short lived treaty with Aedh, the son of Felim O'Conor, and the favourable terms accorded to the Irish prince on this occasion may have been partly due to the effects of the embassy that Felim had sent earlier in the same year to Henry III (Loch Cé, 407-8). Next year he led a host of twenty thousand men to ravage Connaught, having for his allies on this occasion the sept of Muinter Raighilligh (the O'Reillys of Breigne-O'Reilly); and afterwards plundered parts of the same province. A second peace followed (Athlone, 1257). This again may have been due to Henry III's influence, as we read that in this year the 'king of the Saxons' gave Felim O'Conor a charter for 'the king's five cantreds,' probably the five cantreds near Athlone, which were specially excluded from the early grants of Connaught to the De Burghs (cf. Sweetman, i. 2217–19). In 1260 De Burgh plundered Roscommon, and in 1262 took part in the great English expedition, when a site was marked out for the castle at the same place. Peace was again concluded, and Aedh O'Conor chivalrously trusted his person to the English, and as a mark of his confidence slept in the same bed with De Burgh. This year also saw an expedition against the Macarthys of Desmond. Similar friendlv meetings or hostile expeditions characterised the years 1263, 1264, 1266, 1267, and 1270. In the last year a general war broke out between the English and the Irish of Connaught, owing to the dissensions of De Burgh and
