Rev Burke Widowed
The threat of violence was a factor that loomed constantly in the life of Rev Burke and extended to his family. Such an incident that happened in Tuam, Co Galway  in 1856 caused Mrs Burke an injury that never healed. In fact it lead directly to her death two years later. A stone thrown at the Revered Burke had missed him and hit his wife instead. The injury caused her much pain and could not be cured.

When Mr. Burke left this place with his family he removed, after some time, to Tuam, and subsequently to Clifden, and it is believed that the persecution which Mrs. Burke, in common with her husband endured in these places laid the seeds of a mortal disease in a naturally strong constitution.

Her obituary was in the Achill Missionary Herald of August 17 1858.

On the 17th ult., Mrs Burke, wife of the Rev. William Burke, entered into rest at the Parsonage Castelkerke.

The write up talked of her popularity in the mission and her kindness to all. What was particularly poignant was a the mention of her children:

…Some time after, on of her sons, in an adjoining room, played on a violin an old Irish air, which she set the sixth Irish hymn. After a while she said “I will soon, my darling hear more delightful music than that; it will be heavenly music and I will join in it.

Mrs Burke gave instructions for her funeral and requested a low key and no money should be wasted on extravagances, which was customary for the time. She requested to be buried in Oughterard graveyard.

Rev was now a widow with seven stepchildren, although most of them were grown up by now. The couple had one child together, William Junior, who played the music to his dying mother, and was only a young boy when she passed away.  This early trauma along with other hardship he had suffered, being the son of a convert priest may have played a part in the great difficulties he suffered later on in life.

Rev Burke went to live in Dublin for a while, taking young William with him. He stayed at an address in Harrington Street, near the South Circular Road. The boy was sent to school at the prestigious school Hollyville in Monkstown.

The churchyard in Oughterard, the final resting place of Mrs. Burke

Sources

Achill Missionary Herald August 17 1858

Rev Burke traveled the country preaching the Gospel to anyone who would listen, and bravely went where few would venture. He was reliable and fearless, and was called upon to assist with new converts. An incident in Clifden, Co. Galway in 1856 illustrates how dangerous his work was. In the letter below from Rev Hyacinth D’Arcy (Evangelical landlord and founder of the Clifden Mission) to an unnamed recipient, gives an insight into how an innocent reading of the Bible could end up in a violent outburst, what missionaries called ‘disturbances of the peace’.

…Convert widow sent for Hyacinth D’Arcy, who asked Mr Burke to go to her, HD heard a noise, saw that ‘an immense multitude of people pressing up the street’

 Mr Burke had been reading with the widow when people collected and threw stones at the door.  Police sent for HD[Hyacinth D’Arcy] addressed the crowd. HD thought trouble was due to idleness or keeping the day by way of Holy Day contrary to the commandments of God. (Corpus Christi) Fr Mac Manus [parish priest of Clifden] accused HD of ‘parading through the streets a man obnoxious to the good people of Clifden, namely Rev. Burke…

The incident happened well over a decade after William John Burke converted. The backlash against him never went away. He was persecuted everywhere he went. This persecution would in time cause a tragedy that would be far reaching enough to impact on at least two generations of the Burke family.

Sources

http://www.irishchurchmissions.ie/1849-1869/

(Letter from Hyacinth D,Arcy to unnamed recipient, 27^th May 1856, MS Number G3/3/12 in Copley

Papers, University of Durham)

Special thanks to Miriam Moffett, author of Soupers & Jumpers: the Protestant Missions in Connemara, 1848-1937, who shared her knowledge and expertise with me

Rev William J Burke the Missionary

Rev Burke was an excellent speaker and a fearless missionary. In the early days of his vocation he used to rise sometimes as early as four in the morning and travel the land preaching to farmers in the field. As his preaching skills became more renowned he was invited to England to give lectures, often to packed halls. In some of his talks he would tell of his experiences and conquests as a missionary in a lecture in Dunkinfield, Manchester:

The lecturer gave a narrative of his own life, how he was brought up a Papist and then converted to Protestantism. Since then he had laboured hard as a missionary of the gospel. and had visited every Irish mission station but two, often traveling as much as 600 mile a moth, the greater part on foot and sometimes having to go up to the armpits in fording streams and crossing bogs. He calculated from a careful personal inquiry which he began in 1842, that fro that year to 1862, no fewer than 30,00 Romanist in Ireland had been converted to Protestantism.

His work for the missions extended to writing to the papers too. He did not hold back and did not mind shaming the church he broke away from. From the letter to  The Record, 20 February 1851, when he lived at Ballycroy (an Irish Society mission station in Co Mayo, north of Mulranny). Despite the subject matter  his eloquence is evident:

Sources

The Ashton Weekly Reporter, and Stalybridge and Dukinfield Chronicle 13 June 1868

The Reporter, 13 June 1868

 The Record, 20 February 1851

Thanks

Special thanks to Miriam Moffett, author of Soupers & Jumpers: the Protestant Missions in Connemara, 1848-1937, who shared her knowledge and expertise with me