Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke was born on New Year's Day 1729 (12 January New Style) in the family house in Arran Quay, Dublin just two years after the accession of George II. His father, Richard Burke, was a prominent lawyer, a member of the Church of Ireland who had married a Catholic, Mary Nagle, in 1724. Burke was one of four children, and the lucky timing of his parent's mixed marriage meant that the family escaped the fiercely discriminatory effects of the anti-catholic legislation enacted in 1733 that would have affected the religious and professional status of Burke's father. The impact made on Burke by the religious circumstances of his family background, nevertheless, would be deep and long-lasting, and would have a significant bearing on his p