After spending a few months on his farm upon release, he made a similar effort in Ireland, where he was imprisoned several times for short periods, and was more than once nearly starved to death in crossing what were then almost uninhabited parts of the island.
According to his own account he was released at the end of fourteen weeks, because ‘there was a bowling-alley before the prison door, where several of the magistrates and others used to come to their games; and hearing my voice they were offended and sent me away.’ He then went on a tour of Barbados, Virginia and New England, from 1664–7.
He died in Kilconner, County Carlow, on 11 July 1690, aged about 59, and was buried at the New Garden burial-ground, near Dublin, having been a quaker minister for twenty-three years.
His collected works were published in 1691 under the title of The Truth exalted in the Writings of that Eminent and Faithful Servant of Christ, John Burneyeat, &c., with Prefaces to the Reader and several testimonies from various Friends in England, Ireland, and America.
No biographical book of Burneyeat has ever been published, and the scanty remnants of his history can only be gleaned from the testimonies of his friends and occasional references in the works of himself and his contemporaries.