William Liath de Burgh

William Liath de Burgh, magnate and deputy Justiciar of Ireland, died 1324.

De Burgh was a son of William Og de Burgh, who was killed at the Battle of Áth-an-Chip or Athankip in 1270, and a nephew of Walter de Burgh, 1st Earl of Ulster (died 1271). He was nicknamed liath, Gaelic for grey, though the reasons are unknown.

De Burgh spent much of his life fighting on behalf of his cousin, the 2nd Earl of Ulster, first coming to notice in 1290 when he was defeated in a skirmish with Mac Coughlan.

He was deputy justiciar from 1 October 1308 under Piers Gaveston, relinquishing office on 15 May 1309.

He was captured at the Battle of Connor in Ulster in 1315, when an army led by his cousin the Earl of Ulster was defeated by an Irish-Scots army led by Edward Bruce. He was sent to Scotland, his release only been obtained by the earl in summer 1316, in exchange for his son, Edmund, as hostage.

Returning from Scotland he was in Connacht by July 1316 and assembled "a motley army of Anglo-Norman colonists and Irish chieftains who had remained loyal to the earl and marched against Fedlimid O'Connor, who had taken advantage of the chaos to lay waste to the province. On 10 August, after a particularly bloody battle at Athenry, William was victorious."

He had married Finola Ni Briain, daughter of Brian Ruad or The MacJordan, by whom he had three sons:

He may also have had other children- legitimate or illegitimate:

Ronan Mackay summed him up as a loyal and capable lieutenant of the Earl. "From 1305 onwards he was lord of connacht in all but name, allowing Richard to concentrate on the rest of his sprawling domains. The fact that Connacht did not collapse during the Bruce invasion was primarily due to William's ability and his strong ties to many of the leading Irish families of the province. Ironically his success in building a local power base there was to lead to conflict between his heirs and the next earl of Ulster.

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