Fr Tom Burke was a noted lecturer and preacher during the nineteenth century. He was the only son of Walter Burke, a baker. While some sources claim that he was born in Kirwan’s Lane on 8 September 1830, others mention Dominick Street. During a Dublin lecture delivered by Fr Jarlath Hynes in 1913, he stated that Tom Burke was ‘Born in a house near the bridge at Dominick Street, now a police barracks’ (This would indicate An Tobar Nua). However, others say it was across the road in a house facing onto the canal. Nevertheless, as a child growing up on the street, he was full of mischief and loved playing pranks on people. He was also impersonating people in the area and would mimic Michael Walsh, the Nailor. He derived great fun out of this, being chased around the street.
Tom received his early education at the Patrician Monastery School in Lombard Street, where Brother Paul O’Connor sowed the seeds of his future greatness. At seventeen, he entered the Dominican Order and studied at Rome and Perugia. After four years he was transferred to Woodchester in Gloucestershire to take charge of a newly appointed novitiate. In 1855, he returned to Ireland, where he was appointed superintendent of the new Tallaght novitiate. Nine years later he found himself in Rome, as Prior of San Clemente. He attended the Vatican Council of 1870 as theologian to the Bishop of Dromore. On 12 October 1871, he sailed from Liverpool to New York to visit the American Dominican houses. He was unhappy with the attitudes of Irish Catholics towards their religion. Thus began his great preaching crusade, which eventually won him the title ‘Prince of Preachers’. There are some eighteen letters from American bishops praising Fr Burke’s wonderful work. Day after day, his lectures and sermons were delivered with an eloquence and power that seemed supernatural. He electrified his congregation with spontaneous outbursts of expressiveness. He became immensely popular and raised fifty thousand dollars in eighteen months. When he returned to Galway, his old teacher, Paul O’Connor, greeted him with an address of welcome. He was assigned to Tallaght Priory. He made frequent visits to Rome, where he hoped the warm climate would improve his deteriorating health. Although extremely ill, Fr Tom delivered his last sermon on 22 June 1883. According to a reporter of the Freeman’s Journal, he again held the congregation spellbound with the eloquence of his tongue. It was a charity sermon to raise money for five thousand starving children in Donegal. On 2 July 1883, the ‘Prince of Preachers’ died at Tallaght in Dublin. He was laid to rest in the church since dedicated to his memory. In 1948, the limestone statue of the famous preacher was unveiled at Fr. Burke Road, also named in his honour. The sculptor was Seán Kavanagh from Cork.
