John Bourke, 4th Earl of Mayo

He was the eldest son of Joseph Deane Bourke, 3rd Earl of Mayo (Archbishop of Tuam 1782–94) and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Meade, 3rd Baronet.

He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford from 1784, and later became a D.C.L. (1793). He also served as Colonel of the Kilkenny Militia.^[1] He succeeded to his father's titles on the death of his father on 20 August 1794. Before the Act of Union, he was Chairman of Committees in the Irish House of Lords; as compensation from the abolition of the House in 1801, he was awarded an annual pension of £1332.^[2]

On 20 February 1810, he was sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland and was elected an Irish representative peer on 2 March 1816. On 11 May 1819, he represented the Duke of Clarence and St Andrews (later William IV) at the baptism of Prince George of Cambridge in Hanover and was appointed a GCH that year.^[2][3]

At the coronation of George IV on 19 July 1821, he carried the Standard of Hanover.^[4]

On 24 May 1792, Mayo had married Arabella Mackworth-Praed (1766–1843), daughter of William Mackworth Praed of Bitton House, Devon; they had no children. Arabella was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Adelaide.^[1] He died at Bersted Lodge, South Bersted, Sussex, the home of Susan Smith (née Mackworth-Praed) his sister in law and widow of Thomas Smith of Bersted Lodge (brother of Sir John Smith Burgess, Bart), and his titles passed to his nephew, Robert.^[2][5]