Robert Malachy Burke
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Born into a landed Church of Ireland family at Ballydugan, Loughrea, County Galway, Robert Malachy Burke (aka "Bobby") (1907 - 1998) was a noted Christian Socialist and philanthropist.
He was active (alongside his wife, Ann Grattan of Belfast) in a variety of organisations in the fields of community development, co-operativism, peace activism, religion, and politics. At Toghermore, Tuam (the birthplace of his mother, Ethel Maud Henry), where he came to live following his parents’ separation, he established an innovative co-operative farm.
As an Irish Labour Party representative, he sat on Galway County Council and in Seanad Éireann, but, despite polling strongly on several occasions, he was not elected to the Dail.
Following the death of his mother, Bobby Burke gifted his property to the Irish health authorities for use in the struggle against tuberculosis, and, early in 1951, he took up a position as a development worker with an Anglican charity in Nigeria. Alongside Ann, he worked during the next decades with various agencies in Africa, before the couple retired to Belfast.
[edit] Source
- John Cunningham, ‘Bobby Burke: Christian Socialist’, in J.A. Claffey (ed.) Glimpses of Tuam since the Famine, Tuam 1997, pp.239-53.
