Politician. He was a 19th century Irish civil servant, who was assassinated on May 6, 1882 in Phoenix Park in Dublin along with Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed British Chief Secretary of Ireland. Working for the British establishment, Burke had served as Permanent Under Secretary at the Irish Office for many years. He was regarded as pro-British and opposed to Irish Nationalism, who referred to Burke as the "Castle rat", and he was associated with the British coercion policy during the Land War of 1879 to 1882. While taking an afternoon walk in the park, the two men were fatally stabbed by five men, who were members of a radical Fenian group, the Irish National Invincibles. Burke, who had actually been the target of the politically motivated crime, was attacked first. While Cavendish was making an attempt to defend Burke, his own life was taken. All five aggressors were eventually arrested, brought to trial, and executed in 1883. The crime became to be known as the "Phoenix Park Murders." Born the second son of seven children of an Irish Catholic family, his parents were William Burke and Fanny Xaviera Tucker. He was educated at St. Mary College at Oscott before traveling to Germany and Belgium to study. In May 1847 he was appointed supernumerary clerk to the office of the chief secretary in Dublin Castle. For his participation in the 1848 arrest of William Smith O'Brien, charging him of high treason and the searching of O'Brien's private papers, earned Burke severe condemnation from Irish Nationalists. O'Brien was executed in 1867 for yet another Fenian crime against the British. From 1851 to 1865, he served in the position of private secretary to several governmental officials. In May of 1869, he was appointed under-secretary, effectively permanent head of the Irish executive. In the absence of the chief secretary W. E. Forster, Burke assumed a host of governmental tasks, working long hours. Although a member of the Liberal political party, he was fair minded in his duties, not having a Liberal Party agenda. An attempted assassination occurred as Forster had developed political enemies. On February 7, 1882, he opened a letter-bomb intended for Forster, but it did not explode. In May of that year, Foster resigned his post. At that point, Burke became the target. A bachelor, he lived quietly with his sister, and was regarded by most as an easygoing Irishman, who was a conscientious and hard-working public servant. While England held a grand funeral with thousands of mourners for Cavendish, he had a private funeral and was buried next to his father under a Celtic cross. With the trial of journalist Richard Pigott, who was the forger of "The Parnell Letters," the assassination continued to be covered readily in the newspaper until 1888. In his honor, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland administers the Burke Memorial Fund which was established in 1883 with a trust fund.