Bourke (Oldtown)
A branch of the Bourkes of Carrowkeel and Curraghleagh, Walter Bourke of Oldtown married Cecilia Coghlan of Prospect, county Mayo and had five sons including Thomas Bourke of Rockfort, the Reverend Geoffrey Bourke and Surgeon Major Joseph Bourke. He held the townland of Ballinvilla at the time of Griffith's Valuation, part of the estate of the Blakes of Doonmacreena. In the 1870s Surgeon Major Joseph Bourke of Farnham, Hants, England owned 1394 acres in county Mayo. It was the threat of evictions on this estate that led to the large tenant right meeting in Irishtown in April 1879 and later that year to the establishment of the Land League.
Associated Families
Archival sources
- Westport Estate Papers, Collection List 78. MS 40/895/5(2-4) & MS 40,896/4(2-6); National Library of Ireland
Contemporary printed sources
- ''GRIFFITH'S VALUATION OF IRELAND'[Primary Valuation of Tenements]', 1850-1858. : Claremorris Union, 53 (Oldtown) & 56 (Rockfort)
- HUSSEY DE BURGH, U. H. ''The Landowners of Ireland. An alphabetical list of the owners of estates of 500 acres or £500 valuation and upwards in Ireland''. Dublin: Hodges, Foster and Figgis, 1878. [available online at www.askaboutireland.ie] : 529
- PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS. ''Return of owners of land of one acre and upwards, in the several counties .... in Ireland''. HC 1876, LXXX: 307
- LEWIS, Samuel. ''A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland''. London: S. Lewis & Co., 1837: Vol II, 218
- SLATER, Isaac. ''Royal National Directory of Ireland: List of the principal seats''. (Manchester: 1894) : xxxi, 72 (Oldtown)
Modern printed sources
- ''Jnl. of the South Mayo Family Research Society'': DELANEY, Gerard M. The Land for the People: Outbreak of the Land War. VII (1994), 27-38
- BURKE, Sir Bernard. ''A genealogical and heraldic history of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland''. London: Harrison & Sons, 1886: 184-186