Burke's mother belonged to the Nagle family, which had a strong connection in the county of Cork; they had been among the last adherents of James II., and they remained firm Catholics.

Mrs.Burke remained true to the Church of her ancestors, and her only daughter was brought up in the same faith.
Edmund Burke and his two brothers, Garret and Richard, were bred in the religion of their father; but Burke never, in after times, lost a large and generous way of thinking about the more ancient creed of his mother and his uncles.
In 1741 he was sent to school at Ballitore, a village some thirty miles away from Dublin, where Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker from Yorkshire, had established himself fifteen years before, and had earned a wide reputation as a successful teacher and a good man.
According to Burke, he richly deserved this high character.

It was to Abraham Shackleton that he always professed to owe whatever gain had come to him from education.

If I am anything, he said many years afterwards, it is the education I had there that has made me so.

His master's skill as a teacher did not impress him more than the example which was every day set before him, of uprightness and simplicity of heart.