The above advertisement appeared in the Galway Vindicator in November 1859. The above lecture by Professor King, was one of many given by professors and lecturers at the newly formed Queen’s College Galway. The new educational institute was doing well considering the odds stacked up against it.

Firstly it was highly condemned by the Catholic Church, as they didn’t hold any office in the college, it was by and large a Protestant institution, however Catholic students were widely accepted. But the institution was a ‘Godless College’ to their mind.  A bigger obstacle still was the lack of secondary education in the West of Ireland, which allowed students to matriculate in the college. Students did come from other parts of the country making it viable to have a centre of learning in Galway.

One such student was Emily’s brother William Henry Emeris Burke. His given address on the college register for 1863 was Edenderry, Kings County [modern day Offaly], where his parents, Rev. and Mrs Burke lived at the time.

The Faculty of Anatomy was in its first few years, and students had to finish their degree elsewhere. It survived against the odds perhaps that was due to the staff who offered public lectures. According to James P. Murray in his book on the medico-social history of Galway.

“Galway newspapers frequently carried items of news concerning the College, which was evidently a source of interest and pride to the people of Galway. That interest was fostered by the academic staff: they gave their introductory lectures as public lectures which were well attended and applauded, the College staff participated in local social and cultural activities and many professors became prominent in local affairs.”

Perhaps you William Burke attended one of those lectures.

Sources

Galway Vindicator, and Connaught Advertiser 02 November 1859

Galway : a Medico-Social history,Galway : Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Gallery 1994, James P. Murray

William Henry Emeris Burke was accepted at Queen’s College Medical School in 1862. He was not quite eighteen. A bright pupil he had a promising career ahead, no matter what he chose to do.

At the time the College had just began to offer a course in medicine. It was only two years long and the students had to attend other colleges in order to qualify as a doctor. This explains why William Henry Emeris Burke disappeared from the college records after 1864.

“Because of the inadequate hospital facilities in Galway it was not possible to obtain the required certificates without spending sometime elsewhere, usually in Dublin, London or Scotland.”

To Dublin, London and Scotland he went.

Sources

Galway : a medico-social history,Galway : Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Gallery 1994, James P. Murray

After the shooting of his daughter Dr Burke was taken to the Beckett Hospital at Barnsley to treat his gunshot wound which tuned out to be a flesh wound and not life threatening.  It was not taken into account at the time that he was also suffering from shock as well as the effects of alcoholism on his body. If it were modern times he would have been treated for that as well as the bullet wound.

Beckett Hospital Barnsley

Dr. Burke’s wound healed to the satisfaction of the doctors at the Beckett Hospital, but his health was not good. He had developed pleurisy as well as having an underling condition, the result of heavy drinking. It would take some time until he was fit to stand trial.

Sources

Sheffield Independent 17 March 1888

Sheffield Daily Telegraph 29 November 1927

It became apparent that William Burke Jr. was a talented child. He played the violin, was a talented cricket player, he also excelled academically. It was clear from the start that he would have a glittering career whatever he took up, and as predicted he did.

After the tragic loss of his mother, when he was a young boy his father Rev. Burke left the West of Ireland, where he took a position in the church at St. Audoens Church near Christchurch. Rev. Burke lived at Harrington Street near the city centre, William Jr. was sent to school at Hollyville Park in Monkstown. The original school is no longer in existence although St. Patrick’s Boy’s Primary School stands on the site or nearby. It is a place of the past in building and in documentation. Apart from old newspaper articles and a few references in cricket records it has all but disappeared from history.

In its’ time Hollyville Park School was a school was for high achievers, like William Burke Jr.

Hollyville park school, MONKSTOWN, CO. DUBLIN. FRENCH and GERMAN, under Foreigner, are taught free of extra charge ; and, while the usual branches of a first class Education receive their due amount of care, the SACRED SCRIPTURES, ENGLISH, and COMPOSITION…(02 March 1863 – Dublin Daily Express – Dublin, Dublin, Republic of Ireland)

Hollyville park school, MONKSTOWN, CO. DUBLIN. 1. The Prospectus and Half-yearly Report, which contain account of the System of the School,and the success former Pupils, the Masters, Ac., will forwarded on application to the Principal or Vice-Principal…(09 July 1862 – Dublin Daily Express – Dublin, Dublin, Republic of Ireland)

The school offered many subjects that prepared it’s young pupils for a career in the army, church or in medicine. Perhaps it was the school’s education towards joining the church that persuaded Rev. Burke to sending his son there but in the end it was a medical career that William Jr. was attracted to.

His second love was also indulged at Hollyville Park, cricket. If he was not a doctor perhaps if it were possible at the time he may have been a professional cricket player. He was listed as a player on the Monk Bretton cricket team in 1880 and beyond.

Hollyville was in close proximity to the Monkstown Cricket Grounds and had it’s own cricket club attached. In his 1865 book, John Lawrences’s Handbook of Cricket in Ireland. The author observed:

“Hollyville Park School Close to Monkstown Church ‘where every boys seems a matured gentlemen’”

The statement was very true of the young William Henry Emeris Burke.

To View Hollyville Park School in Flicker

Sources

https://www.cricketleinster.ie/archives/articles/1865-and-all-that

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cricketgroundsofireland

Sheffield Independent 09 June 1880

Out of a private room at the Norman Inn, on the 4th February 1888 ran a distraught woman, thinking that her estranged husband was about to shoot her. It was late on a Saturday night and a police officer was nearby ready to enforce the closing time law on local pubs, when the panicking  woman accosted him. Then two shots rang out.

The first bullet hit Aileen Burke in the chest. The little girl died almost immediately. She was eight years old. The second lodged in Dr. Burke’s chest. It caused damage but not death, not what he had intended. The gun lay on the discarded on floor when his wife entered with a police officer only minute or so later. “It missed” was all the doctor said. He did not utter another word but kissed his dead daughter, while the shocked party waited for medical help.

A note lay on the floor too. It was addressed to Mrs. Burke, the named picked it up and put it in her pocket, but thought be better of it or did not want to touch what could be an explanation for the horror that unfolded and handed to the law.

Medical help eventually arrived, nothing could be done for little Aileen. Dr. Burke was taken to the Beckett Hospital at Barnsley.

Sources

Morning Post 06 February 1888