Burke (de Burgo), Thomas (1709/10–1776), Dominican historian and bishop of Ossory 1759–76, was born in Dublin, a descendant of the Burkes of Cloghcroke, near Athenry, Co. Galway; no details of his parents are known. His grand uncle, Thomas Burke (c.1650–1724), was prior of the Dominican convent of Athenry and a distinguished Dominican scholar. After his studies in Dublin he joined the Dominicans in Rome in 1724 and made his solemn profession in 1726. He completed his theological studies in 1732 at the Dominican college of SS Sixtus and Clement, where he taught and studied until 1742. He compiled a short manuscript history of the college, published Promptuarium morale (1731), an enlarged Latin edition of the work of the Spanish moral theologian Francisco Larraga, and acted as agent for the Irish hierarchy in obtaining papal sanction for celebration of the diocesan festivals of Irish saints. While in Rome he had close contact with popes, cardinals, and prominent Dominicans and with the exiled Stuarts. In October 1742 he was conferred master of theology and ordered to Dublin, where he arrived in late 1743 to perform missionary work with the Dominicans of Bridge St.
In 1749 he was appointed definitor of the provincial chapter. He compiled and published offices for the festivals of Irish saints, Officia propria sanctorum Hiberniae (1751), and A catechism, moral and controversial (1752). After the general chapter of Dominicans in Bologna in 1748 commanded all provinces to appoint an official historian to write their histories, Burke was instructed to write a history of the Irish Dominicans in July 1753. He claimed his research brought him to every county in Ireland, visiting ruined Dominican abbeys and questioning local Dominican communities. Despite having to contend with the indifference of his colleagues and a paucity of archival sources, he presented his history to his provincial chapter in 1757; it was approved in Rome in 1759, and published as Hibernia Dominicana in 1762. Although it was probably printed in Kilkenny it had a fictitious Cologne imprint to assuage protestant fears. Much of the work was copied from other scholars and papal and Dominican bulls, but it also contained several valuable sections written from Burke's personal research, notably his membership lists of communities for 1756.
Part of his research involved donning a disguise in January 1756 to sit in the public gallery of the Irish house of lords during debates on the bill to register parochial clergy; Burke believed that the bill's main purpose was to exclude regular clergy from Ireland because of their loyalty to the pope and the Stuarts. An ardent Jacobite, Burke strongly criticised the attempt of Archbishop Michael O'Reilly (qv) of Armagh, in a pastoral letter in September 1757, to make catholic teaching more palatable to protestants. He maintained that catholics owed no loyalty to the Hanoverians and that the pope did indeed have the power to depose a sovereign. This outspoken position irritated most of the Irish hierarchy, but probably contributed to Burke's being appointed bishop of Ossory in January 1759. Normally resident in Kilkenny, he ruled his diocese with a firm hand, and was involved in a bitter dispute with Fr Patrick Molloy over the pastorship of St Mary's parish (1757–65). Deeply concerned at the dwindling numbers of friars in Ireland, on 31 December 1760 and again in 1769 he formally requested permission from Rome to reopen the Dominican novitiate. His long residence in Rome and contact with Italian theologians inclined him towards absolute papal supremacy, and he strongly criticised a meeting of Kilkenny catholics who supported the oath of allegiance to George III in 1768.
He was in Rome September 1769–March 1770, searching for materials for a supplement to Hibernia Dominicana. At this time he was put forward by the four Dominican provincials for the archbishopric of Dublin, but the clergy of Dublin and the bishops of Ferns and Kildare strongly opposed his appointment, maintaining that he was ‘the enemy of all peace and concord’ (Fenning, 372). Burke himself supported John Carpenter (qv), who was duly appointed. While in Rome, Burke befriended John Thomas Troy (qv), and afterwards the two corresponded regularly. Troy supplied Burke with Roman gossip, acted as his business agent, and transcribed historical documents for the supplement and the proposed second edition of Hibernia Dominicana.
In 1772 Burke published Supplementum Hiberniae Dominicanae, containing important additions to the original work, including a defence of Archbishop GianBattista Rinuccini (qv) based on the Rinuccini manuscripts in Rome. The supplement also contained Papal Nuncio Ghilini's 1768 repudiation of an oath of allegiance to George III drawn up by the Catholic Committee and Irish hierarchy, and a defence of the proposition that catholics need not keep faith with excommunicated rulers. Some Irish catholic bishops were uneasy about these inclusions, and believed that sections on James II's (qv) Irish parliament and the Hanoverian succession might offend protestant opinion; these sections were removed from many copies of the work. In July 1775 James Butler (qv), archbishop of Cashel, and six Munster bishops formally criticised parts of Hibernia Dominicana and its supplement, claiming that they tended to foster sectarian tensions and weaken allegiance to George III.
In September 1775 Burke wrote a pastoral letter condemning Whiteboy agrarian protesters, who had been particularly active in his diocese. He died in Kilkenny 25 September 1776 while preparing a new edition of Hibernia Dominicana; and was succeeded in Ossory by Troy. In his will he left 626 scudi to SS Sixtus and Clement to reprint Hibernia Dominicana but, as no one was prepared to undertake the work, the money went to the college.