Burgh, Walter de (d. 1332), magnate, was eldest son of William ‘Liath’ de Burgh (qv) and Finola, daughter of Brian Ruad Ó Briain (qv). His first appearance in the records occurs in October 1326, after the death of Earl Richard de Burgh (qv), when, along with Edmund de Burgh (qv) (d. 1338), son of the earl, he was appointed guardian of the peace in Connacht, Tipperary, and Limerick, and custodian of the late earl's lands in those counties. He was one of those magnates who received a reprimand from the Mortimer government in June 1328 and presumably played a minor part in the disturbances in Munster in 1327–8; he was named as one of the conspirators in the fantastic and probably imaginary plot to make Maurice fitz Thomas FitzGerald (qv) (earl of Desmond from 1329) king of Ireland (as his reward he was to be granted the lordship of Connacht). In 1328 he led a successful expedition against Toirrdelbach Ó Conchobair (qv) in Connacht, though he was defeated in battle after a meeting with Maelruaidh Mac Diarmata, who wanted revenge for the murder of one of his sons by Walter.
The arrival in Ireland that summer of his titular overlord, the young earl William de Burgh (qv), ended Walter's de facto autonomy in Connacht. At first the cousins were able to cooperate, seemingly mirroring the partnership that had existed between William ‘Liath’ and Earl Richard de Burgh. William appeared willing to allow the campaigns against Ó Conchobair to continue; and in July 1330, having attended the parliament at Kilkenny, Walter took part in the expedition against Brian Bán Ó Briain in Munster. After an indecisive battle, and almost certainly with the earl's connivance, he and his Connacht forces proceeded to ravage some of Desmond's lands. Shortly afterwards, however, their relationship broke down. Walter, having been ambushed in Roscommon by Ó Conchobair, called on his Irish allies ‘with the object of seizing the sovereignty of Connacht for himself’. Toirrdelbach then looked to the earl of Ulster for protection; William agreed to support him as a counterbalance to his cousin's ambitions and growing power in Connacht, but Toirrdelbach was allegedly ‘murdered’ by some of Walter's men on his way back from the earl (according to the text of the Annals of Connacht). However, as Toirrdelbach, king of Connacht, did not die till 1345, he may have been only wounded, or another Toirrdelbach Ó Conchobair may have been killed in this incident. Open conflict could no longer be avoided, and Edmund de Burgh was sent to the province to try to restrain Walter, whose attempt at aggrandisement continued unabated throughout 1331. In November that year, having received a summons to go to England to negotiate a royal visit to Ireland with an oblivious Edward III, Walter, along with his two brothers, was captured at the earl's orders and imprisoned in Northburgh castle in Co. Donegal. There, he died from starvation in February 1332. The murder of Earl William the following year was a direct consequence of Walter's death, and contemporary sources are almost unanimous in fixing the blame on Jill, Walter's sister, who exhorted her husband, Richard de Mandeville, to arrange the assassination.