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Grace O'Malley
Female Irish Pirate
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Born: c. 1530
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Died: Unknown |
 It must've been
something to see. They were both older by then, Gloriana in her waning years
and Grace O'Malley weather-beaten and lined, but both still afire with life
and dangerous to anyone who was careless enough to take them lightly. Grace
O'Malley had traveled to England to plead her case with the Queen directly,
and to the amazement of almost everyone, Elizabeth I agreed to see her. She
must have liked what she saw, because against the wishes of her counselors,
she granted all Grace's requests. Being something of a pirate herself,
perhaps the Queen of England saw in Grace the woman she might have been.
So who was this wild
Irish woman? She was certainly a pirate, but also a soldier, a gambler, and
a leader of men. She lived through great changes in Ireland, but had
inflicted as much grief as she had endured. Proud, feisty and indomitable,
O'Malley is largely forgotten today, even in her native Ireland, but in her
day she was legend.
Grace O'Malley was
born around 1530 to Owen "Black Oak" O'Malley, the elected chieftain of the
Barony of Murrisk. Known as seafarers since 1123, the O'Malley ships traded
from the west coast of Ireland as far afield as Spain, Portugal and
Scotland, and it's from this trade that we first hear of young Grace. Eager
to sail for Spain, she begged her parents for permission to sail with the
O'Malley fleet. Her mother told her that such a life was not suitable for a
lady. Grace vanished, only to return with her long red hair cut short. In
all likelihood this was probably not the first time that they'd seen the
flash of anger and independence in their daughter. Legend has it that the
chief of the O'Malleys has the ability to look out to sea and predict the
weather, and that Grace's father took his illegitimate son, Donal of the
Pipes, out to see if he had the gift. But the one who saw the storm was his
wild girl.
At 16 she was married
to Donal O'Flaherty, a good match considering that he was next in line to be
chieftain of the O'Flahertys and owned the castles of Bunowen and
Ballinahinch. A man of violent temper, he was suspected of murdering his
step-nephew so that Richard, his sister's son, could become chieftain of the
MacWilliams. Tribal politicking and wrangling had always been a feature of
Irish life, and in spite of the greater English presence on the island, it
continued unabated through much of the 16th century.
 Grace
had three children by O'Flaherty: Owen, Murrough and Margaret, but she was
not the sort to settle down to home and hearth. Over the ensuing years, she
gradually eclipsed her husband, taking over the captaincy of the fleet and
supervising their business and political dealings. In time, the O'Flaherty
ships were banned from Galway, one of the major trading ports in Ireland.
Grace was forced to take her wares directly to Spain, Portugal, Scotland and
Ulster, but she didn't let matters rest there. She would lie in wait off the
coast and swoop down on the slow merchant ships in her galleys, negotiating
with the captain of whatever unfortunate vessel she had waylaid for money
for safe passage (a Renaissance protection racket), and if they declined she
would simply plunder their vessel for everything it held.
O'Flaherty died
during a revenge attack by the Joyce clan. He had captured their island
castle of Caislean-an-Circa and they had mustered all their strength to try
and regain it. If they thought they'd won when Donal died, they were sadly
mistaken. Grace took up the battle and defeated her husband's killers. The
castle became one of her favorites, and she defended it against all comers,
including the English. During one particularly desperate siege, she ordered
her men to remove the lead from the castle roof, then melted it down to make
shot. The English were forced to retreat to the mainland, but Grace wasn't
done with them yet. She sent a messenger through a secret passage to the
mainland where he lit beacon fires alerting her fleet. The ships put to sea,
defeated the English and raised the siege.
Although by law she
was entitled to a third of her late husband's estate, her two sons denied
her the property (what were they thinking!) so Grace returned to O'Malley
land with 200 followers and set up operations on Clare Island in Clew Bay.
From there she could monitor all traffic in and out of the bay and between
providing pilots, protection and piracy she made herself and her followers
wealthy.
As you would expect,
there are numerous romantic legends about the lady pirate, most with the
tragic twist of Celtic lore. One story, for example, has her setting out to
rescue (yeah, right) a ship that she had heard had foundered on the rocks
near Achill. She set sail in a gale, but when she got there the ship had
vanished, broken on the vicious rocks. The only survivor was a young man,
Hugh de Lacy, and he was near death. Grace nursed him back to health and the
two fell in love and married. (You know this is going to turn out badly,
right?) They were blissfully happy, until one day while out deer hunting he
was killed by the MacMahons of Ballycroy. Grace, grief stricken, tracked the
killers to the island of Cahir where they had gone on a pilgrimage. She
burned their boats and killed those responsible with her own hand, then
sailed back to their castle of Doona in Blacksod Bay, defeating its
defenders and taking it for herself. This was not a woman you wanted to
cross.
 It
wasn't long before almost all of Clew Bay was in O'Malley hands. The one
piece of property left was governed by Iron Dick Burke from the castle of
Rockfleet. By the way, this is the nephew whose future her first husband had
killed to ensure. In 1566 she married him (apparently they weren't too
concerned with those pesky consanguinity rules that the Church kept coming
up with) and a year later gave birth to a son, Tibbot. Tibbot was supposedly
born on board ship while Grace was returning from a trading mission. The day
after the birth the ship was attacked by Turkish pirates. The captain made
his way to Grace's cabin to tell her that the fight was going against them.
Grace leaped from bed, "May you be seven times worse this day twelvemonth,"
she stormed, "Who cannot do without me for one day!" She grabbed a musket on
her way up to the deck and blew a Turk away, "Take this from unconsecrated
hands!" They captured the ship, killed its crew and added it to their fleet.
By this point, the
English felt they couldn't really ignore her, so on March 8, 1574 Captain
William Martin took a force of ships and men and laid siege to Grace in
Rockfleet Castle. Within two weeks, Grace had turned her defense into an
attack and the English were forced to beat a hasty retreat. But such
victories could not go on forever. The English had been changing the
traditional laws of Ireland, outlawing the system of electing chieftains in
favor of the European system of primogeniture, and they had consolidated
their power where it counted. Each year more Irish chieftains submitted to
the English throne, including the head of the O'Malley clan. In 1577, Grace
herself submitted. The current MacWilliam chieftain had submitted the year
before; Iron Dick Burke had been elected next in line, but if The MacWilliam
decided to follow the first-born rule he would be out of luck. They needed
to build a political base if they were to ensure their place in the clan.
 Sir
Henry Sidney, as Lord Deputy of Ireland, was responsible for Irish matters
at this time, and we have his son, the poet Sir Philip Sidney, to thank for
many of the stories about Grace. He was fascinated by her, and they spent
many hours in conversation. His letters home form the foundation of our
knowledge about her exploits, though many have been lost. A favorite story
was how she stopped to restock her ship in Dublin and went to the Lord of
Howth for hospitality, as was Gaelic custom. When she reached the castle,
however, she found the gates locked against her by the servants, who told
her that their Lord was eating and was not to be disturbed. Furious, she
headed back to her ship, but as luck would have it who should she meet on
the way but the Lord's son. You can almost see the smile on her face as she
hauled the boy off and put to sea. The Lord of Howth promised to pay any
ransom for his son's safe return, but Grace instead demanded that his gates
never be closed against anyone asking hospitality and that an extra place
always be set at table. The Lord of Howth obeyed and to this day there is
always an extra place at table at Howth Castle.
Sound apocryphal?
Well, most of the tales about her do, but there is little doubt that
unlikely or not, many of them are true. These were wild times and grand
gestures were admired. Power often lay in the ability to create one's own
legend.
In 1580 The
MacWilliam died and after a brief struggle Richard duly became clan
chieftain. The following year he was knighted and Grace was more powerful
than ever. Her time at the top was to be short-lived, however, for two years
later her husband was dead (of natural causes!). Having been cheated out of
her inheritance the first time, Grace left nothing to chance. She took 1,000
head of cattle and all her followers and took possession of Carrikahowley.
Fate had not finished
with her, however. In 1584 the Governor of Connaught died and was replaced
by Sir Richard Bingham, a man who was dedicated to the destruction of the
traditional way of life in Western Ireland. Within two years he had managed
to capture Grace and her son Owen, though for some reason he let her go
(maybe as a newcomer he didn't realize how powerful she was). Grace found
that Bingham had confiscated all her livestock and property and left her
with nothing. While she was trying to muster her forces, Owen was murdered.
 Rebellion
raged throughout the west of Ireland for several years, and Grace harried
Bingham's troops with her fleet, disrupting trade, carrying troops to the
rebels, and raiding seaport towns. Bingham tried everything he could to
defeat her, and even succeeded in wooing her son, Murrough, to his side.
Besieged on all fronts, in 1593 Grace finally wrote to the ultimate
authority, Queen Elizabeth I. The letter, which survives, harps on about
injustice and Grace's own advanced age but ends up requesting the Queen, "to
grant unto your said subject under your most gracious hand of signet, free
liberty during her life to invade with sword and fire all your highness
enemies, wheresoever they are or shall be, without any interruption of any
person or persons whatsoever." Not exactly your usual frail little old lady.
The Queen sent Grace
18 "Articles of Interrogatory," a series of questions to be answered by her
on her life, her business and her actions. Grace duly complied, but before
the Queen could respond, Bingham arrested both her son and her brother. At
this point Grace did something totally unexpected - she sailed for England.
 When
Bingham heard where she'd gone, he fired off a letter to the Queen,
vilifying Grace and denouncing her as a traitor. It's not known if Elizabeth
read his letter before or after Grace's visit, what is known is that they
did meet on the 6th of September, 1593 and apparently hit it off. Did each
see something of themselves in the other? Was Elizabeth charmed by this
woman who had achieved with fire and sword what she had achieved with
politics and wit? We will never know. What we do have, however, is the
letter that Elizabeth sent to Bingham following their meeting. In it she
orders him to release Grace's son and brother and restore her property to
her. But she didn't stop there, the letter informs Bingham that Grace
O'Malley has the Queen's permission to "fight in our quarrel with all the
world."
Bingham tried to
weasel out of submitting to Elizabeth's order by simply doing nothing, but
Grace would have none of it and threatened to return to England and tell
Gloriana that her servant was disobeying her orders (not recommended if you
valued your head). The Governor reluctantly returned her family to her and
she put to sea again.
Over the next years
the English fought the Irish clans, who alternately sided with their foes in
an attempt to gain advantage, fought against them, or destroyed each other.
Grace eventually retired to Rockfleet Castle where it is thought she died in
1603, the same year as her Queen.
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