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 t Grace O'Malley's
the story of Grainne Ni Mhaille, or Granuaile (Anglicized as Grace O'Malley,
Grany Malley), reads like the most brazen and unlikely sort of adventure
fiction, but there’s history as well as myth in the legend of the
Irish noblewoman who led a band of 200 sea-raiders from the coast
of Galway in the sixteenth century.
Twice widowed, twice imprisoned, fighting her enemies both Irish
and English for her rights, condemned for piracy, and finally pardoned
in London by Queen Elizibeth herself, Grainne was one of the few
sea-raiders to retire from the sea and die in her own bed, though
where she’s buried remains a mystery.
Grainne's exploits were many and attested, and there can be no doubt
that she made a deep impression on the Englishmen sent to complete
the conquest of Connacht. From her appearance in 1576 before the
Lord Deputy Sir Henry Sidney in Galway, when he described her as
a most famous feminine sea captain and, "a notorious woman in all
the coasts of Ireland", to her interview with Queen Elizabeth in
London in 1593, when she secured the release of her son and her
brother from prison, and promises of maintenance for herself for
the remainder of her life, she proved herself ready to face all
dangers in her determination to salvage some part of her family's
inheritance.
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