Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who,


Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to Great Britain, served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his opposition to the French Revolution. It led to him becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", in opposition to the pro-French-Revolution "New Whigs" led by Charles James Fox. He is generally viewed as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism. Burke was born in Dublin to a prosperous solicitor father (Richard; d. 1761) who was a member of the Protestant Church of Ireland. It is unclear if this is the same Richard Burke who converted from Catholicism. His mother Mary (c. 1702–1770), whose maiden name was Nagle, belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and came from an impoverished but genteel County Cork family. The name Burke is a corruption of the Norman name Burgh or de Burgh, who settled in Ireland following the Norman invasion of Ireland by Henry II of England in 1172. Burke was raised in his father's faith and remained throughout his life a practising Anglican, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic. His political enemies would later repeatedly accuse him of harbouring secret Catholic sympathies at a time when membership of the Catholic church would have disqualified him from public office (see Penal Laws in Ireland). Once an MP, Burke was required to take the oath of allegiance and abjuration, the oath of supremacy, and declare against transubstantiation. No Catholic is known to have done so in the eighteenth century. Although never denying his Irishness, Burke often described himself as "an Englishman". This was in an age "before 'Celtic nationalism' sought to make Irishness and Englishness incompatible".


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