Burke, Oliver (c.1598–1672), Dominican priest and ecclesiastical administrator in Rome and Connacht, was born in Co. Galway, a member of the Clanricard Burke family. He studied at Burgos and was listed as a priest in Spain in 1627. In that year he became an honours student at the Dominican college of St Thomas at the Studium generale of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, where he remained until 1634 as procurator of the Irish Dominicans. He was reputed to be well versed in history and prudent in business matters.
In a letter to Propaganda Fide in 1628 Burke indicated that numbers of Dominicans at Louvain had increased owing to persecution in Ireland. He requested the congregation to thank the University of Louvain for admitting Irish Dominicans as students and for providing generously for their material needs. In another petition (1629), he successfully urged the congregation to act in favour of the proposed foundation of the Dominican college at Lisbon. In January 1629 Burke, with Patrick MacTeig OP, made a sworn statement concerning the suitability of Ross MacGeoghegan (qv) for the diocese of Kildare, and later forwarded the papal brief, even before MacGeoghegan was aware of his nomination. In 1632 he made a visitation to the English Dominicans and visited their provincial in the Clink prison in London.
From 28 November 1629 to March 1647 Burke was vicar apostolic of Kilmacduagh. During this period he was simultaneously rector of Holy Cross college at Mont César, Louvain, from 1634 to December 1636, when, having been refused a papal dispensation to be absent from Kilmacduagh, he was ordered to go to his diocese or resign. On 1 November 1630 Archbishop Malachy O'Queely (qv) of Tuam had written to Ludovico Ludovisi, cardinal protector of Ireland, that Burke, an absentee from his see, was a thorn in his side because he had obtained the incorporation of unnamed parish churches with the houses of his order in the province of Tuam, which interfered with the archbishop's plan of parochial reform. Moreover, he alleged that Burke sought the preferment of unsuitable priests as prelates in western dioceses, and voiced disapproval of any moves to revive Kilmacduagh and other unviable bishoprics in Connacht. Early in 1635 Burke petitioned Urban VIII to grant special faculties to military chaplains and preachers (Irish and English Dominicans were already involved) appointed to the catholic regiments of Spain in the Low Countries, reporting that there were several thousand Irish, English, and Scots fighting for Spain against the Dutch. In the 1640s he acted as vicar general to his brother, John Burke, bishop of Clonfert (1641–7) and later archbishop of Tuam (1647–67); other brothers were Hugh Burke OFM, who succeeded him at Kilmacduagh (1647–c.1654) and Dominic Burke (qv) OP, his successor as procurator in Rome, and afterwards chaplain to Ulick Burke (qv), earl then marquess of Clanricard, and his envoy to the confederation of Kilkenny.
Oliver Burke was proposed as bishop of Achonry c.1640, but was not appointed to the see. He became Clanricard's chaplain, and his personal emissary to the neutral gentry of the Pale in February 1642; he was the bearer and interpreter of the proto-proposals for a form of government that approximated to the confederate model. As a result of conversations between the nobility of the Pale and representatives of the catholic bishops, Burke, together with Rory O'More (qv), Lord Gormanston (qv), and Sir William Hill, was appointed to draft a constitution for Ireland. Some parties suggested his removal from Ireland c.1642 because he declared war unjust. In April 1642 he was proposed as intermediary between the disaffected citizens of Galway and the earl of Clanricard. Soon afterwards, however, the bond of trust between the Burke kinsmen was shattered, and a mixture of complex religious and political motives led Burke to threaten the earl with censure and excommunication, and to differ sharply with his brothers on the question of Archbishop Rinuccini's (qv) authority and the Ormond peace (1646).
Although he was personally opposed to Rinuccini's censures, Burke left Galway in March 1651 as emissary to Pope Innocent X. Most of the next decade he spent in France, though he was at London in November 1653. He was recommended for ecclesiastical promotion c.1664, when he was director of Dominican nuns in Paris. Later he lived in London, where he was well received by Charles II, who had known him in Paris. Having been granted generous travel expenses by the king, he returned to Ireland as a member of Clanricard's household for several years. It has been falsely conjectured that as a royalist he may have favoured the controversial Remonstrance (1666) of Peter Walsh (qv).
Burke died in 1672. The place and date of his burial are unknown. His cosmopolitan career coincided with a critical phase in tangled Irish political and religious developments. His vision, initiatives, and principled role have yet to be fully recovered and historically reappraised.