Marten, Moira (d. p. 1548), third wife of Ulick Burke (qv), 1st earl of Clanricard, appears to have been a member of the merchant élite of the city of Galway. She is described as ‘a woman of great substance’ and being ‘of a civil and English order of education and manners, residing in Galway’ (CP & CRI, i, 169–70). Her first husband was a member of the Lynch family of Galway, but she was a widow when she married Ulick Burke. Although the couple had one son, John Burke, the marriage was almost entirely one of convenience – and of dubious legality, as both of Burke's previous wives were still alive when Lynch married him. His reason for the marriage was to have someone who could polish his manners and help him learn English, so that he could communicate more easily with the king when he went to England to be created earl.
Clanricard's death, little more than a year after his elevation to an earldom, created something of a problem for the English government, as his wives and sons contested for control of the earldom. Moira claimed that as the earl's last wife she was entitled to the traditional one-third dower; and that her son, John, was the rightful heir to the earldom. These disputes were referred to a commission, which decided that the earl's first marriage was the only valid one and that Grainne O'Carroll's son Richard Burke (qv) was the rightful heir. Moira had her claims to dower set aside, although she was granted £300 in recompense for her marriage portion of the manor and castle of Kilcolgan. She was married to a Galway merchant, Piers Marten, by 1548, but appears to fade from the historical record at this point, although her son John emerged to challenge Richard Burke for the earldom in the 1560s.