He was the son of Ulick de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde and his wife, Harriet, daughter of British Prime MinisterGeorge Canning. He was unmourned in Ireland, where he had a reputation as one of the worst and most repressive absentee landlords in the country. His estate centred on Portumna, County Galway spanned a mainly agricultural , yielding about an average of £25,000 during his lifetime yearly in rents paid by 1,900 largely poorly agriculturally equipped and housed tenants, and was a main target during the 1887 Plan of Campaign fought for fair rents by the Irish Parliamentary Party. Clanricarde's opposition to the plan was so obdurate that an Irish minister commented: "... what right has Clanricarde to be treated better than a lunatic or an orphan?" His land agentJohn Henry Blake was murdered in 1882. In 1888 the Earl wrote to Chief Secretary Balfour "the western Irish cannot be kept up to their contracts without the threat of eviction." Upon the suggestion of Arthur Balfour, the Irish members of parliament submitted a bill to parliament for expropriation of his estates. The Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman approved the bill and denounced Clanricarde in parliament in a way described as 'scathing'. Never had Clanicarde visited his estates, despite the many thousands of families that had been evicted from them during that time, resulting in mass destitution. "So universal is the execration in which this particular nobleman is held by people of every political party that when the question of this bill was put to the vote by the speaker, liberals, liberal unionists and conservatives all voted with the Irish party, only three of the nearly 700 members of the house of Commons opposing the vote, which would otherwise have been unanimous." From 1891 onwards the Congested Districts Board attempted to compulsorily purchase the estate but were not successful until 1915. Upon his death his peerages became extinct, save the second creation of the earldom of Clanricarde, which passed by special remainder to the 6th Marquess of Sligo. He died in 1916, aged 83, a resident of 13 Hanover Square, London, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery, Highgate, London. His probate was sworn in that year at.
