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Grace O'Malley

1530–1603

 

Ireland has had many women heroes over the centuries, but few have been of such romantic stature as Grace O'Malley, the courageous pirate 'Queen of the West'.  She has come down to us in legend as one of the most remarkable women of Irish history.

      The western province of Connaught has always been something of a 'Wild West', the last frontier which the invaders had to face.  It is a place that has long lived by the sea, and Grace came from a family of seafarers.  Her name in Gaelic, Granuaile, means 'Grace of the Short Hair' - suggesting a manly cast of features.  She was born (it is thought) about 1530, and was the only daughter of Owen O'Malley, the chief of the O'Malleys who ruled the western coast from Achill Island in the north to Inishbofin in the south.

      At the age of sixteen she married Donal O'Flaherty, one of the clan who held the lands to the south of the O'Malleys in Connemara.  These were lawless days, with feuds, raids, land grabbings, and piracy, though English historians perhaps made it all sound even wilder than it was.  Donal was nicknamed the Cock due to his flashy courage in battle.  He was murdered by the Joyces, who held the land to the east.  Bereft of her husband, Grace did not despair.  She rallied her own people and had to defend his castle, Castlekirk, on the shores of Lough Corrib, earning herself the title the Hen - hence the Gaelic title of the fortress, Caisleàn na Circe - the Hen's Castle'.

      Grace established her own base on Clare Island, one protected by a ring of forts around the shores of Clew Bay.  From this lair, her fleets of ships and galleys would sail out to prey on the cargo vessels that were rounding the Irish coast en route from Spain to Scotland.  She also built Carrickkildavnet Castle, which stands guard over the mouth of Clew Bay.  This is an elegant fifteenth-century tower house, but was only one of her strongholds.

      In 1566 Grace married again, this time to Richard Burke, the chief of the Mayo Burkes, another powerful clan.  Legend has it that when she married Richard, they agreed that either of them could annul the marriage after a year.  Richard had his own stronghold at Carrighowley Castle, where they lived in what seems to the modern eye to have been very cramped quarters.  A year later, when Richard returned from one of his own expeditions, she had locked the castle door.  From the parapet above she called down to the unfortunate man, 'I dismiss you'.

      In 1577 Grace was captured while looting the territory of the earl of Desmond in Munster, and was imprisoned for eighteen months in Limerick.  She was released on condition that she reform her old piratical ways.  Law of a new kind was coming to the west of Ireland - English law.  When the viceroy Sir Richard Bingham began to enforce that law by violent means in Connaught, Grace decided she would appeal directly to Queen Elizabeth I, as one queen to another.  She left Mayo to seek an audience with the queen in London, and got her wish.  In September 1593 the meeting took place.

      Lively Irish legend asserts that Grace O'Malley did indeed speak ass one sovereign to another, and was forthright to the point of insult.  She was offered the title of countess, and retorted that Queen Elizabeth had no right to think of offering such a title, for they were equals; she was no vassal.  However, the reality may have been different.  It is likely that Queen Elizabeth admired the powerful intelligence of the pirate queen.

      Grace was allowed to return to her home in the west and to live there unmolested.  She is thought to have died about 1603, though this, like other details of her life, is uncertain.  Today she remains a legend of the west, and at Louisburgh in Mayo an interpretative centre presents her life and legend for visitors.  Her son, Tiobaid na Long, 'Theobald of the Ships', was murdered in 1629 near Ballintober, where his elaborate tomb can be seen in the de Burgo (or Burke) chapel.

      Whatever legend has done to enhance the life of Grace O'Malley, she remains a striking figure and a reminder that the role of women in past periods of Irish society was not always a subservient one.  In the feudal society of the fifteenth century, men did not always have their way.  The legendary queen became something of a model for the powerful women who ran Ireland's homes in later centuries.

      The sad remains of her tower house can still be seen on Clare Island.  The house was used as a coastguard station in the nineteenth century, but is a ruin today.  A mile and a half across the island are the remains of a Cistercian church from the Middle Ages.  Here there is a tomb that is said to be the final resting place of 'the Pirate Queen'.  The O'Malley crest is carved on the stonework, bearing the proud O'Malley motto: Terra Marique Potens, 'Mighty by Land and Sea'.