Grace O'Malley, Pirate Queen

Nowhere in the annals of seafaring history has a woman succeeded in the art of seamanship like Ireland’s Grace O’Malley. Pirate, chieftain, gambler, noblewoman, traitor and mercenary are all terms that have been applied to one of the greatest warriors that Ireland has ever known.

Queen of the Irish Seas
Granuaile (Grace O'Malley) is thought to have been born in 1530, with one illegitimate stepbrother, Donal-na-Piopa (of the pipes), to the chieftain of the O’Malleys, Owen 'Dubhdarra' (Black Oak). The O'Malley clan was well known for its sailing prowess and traded regularly with Scotland and Spain in their galleys and three-masted caravels.

Grace lived in a violent age, with the English becoming increasingly dominant in Ireland and the local lords vying with each other over land and cattle. But she was endowed with a character that was as indomitable and unpredictable as the ocean waves she sailed upon. Her first real initiation in seafaring came at the age of twelve or thirteen when, disinterested in men and marriage but intent on adventure, she hid aboard her father’s ship.

‘Chief Commander and Director of Thieves and Murderers at Sea’
So dedicated to her career on the high seas was the Irish warrior woman, that, years on, she would give birth to one of her sons in the middle of a sea battle with some North Africans! After marrying her first husband – heir to the O’Flaherty clan with whom she had three children – Grace was marshalling three ships and commanding 200 men. In order to strengthen the position of her clan and oppose English attempts to remove her, Grace’s only means of survival was by fighting.

Grace is believed to have fallen in love with a shipwrecked man called Hugh de Lacy. However, only months into their love affair, the young man was killed by the rival MacMahon clan. Grace was not a woman to be crossed: she retaliated by burning their boats, killing those responsible with her own sword and capturing their castle for herself.

A meeting of minds
Grace’s life reached a dramatic climax when, besieged on all fronts by Sir Richard Bingham and the English who had murdered her son, she travelled to England for an audience with Elizabeth I. After this controversial meeting with ‘the enemy’, Grace was granted protection from the English. Had Elizabeth recognised a kindred spirit, a woman who had achieved with fire and sword what she had achieved with politics and cunning?