Grace O'Malley

Ní Mháille was born in Ireland around 1530, when Henry VIII was King of England and held the title Lord of Ireland. Under the policies of the English government at the time, the semi-autonomous Irish princes and lords were left mostly to their own devices. However, this was to change over the course of Ní Mháille's life as the Tudor conquest of Ireland gathered pace.

Eoghan Dubhdara Ó Máille, her father,[5] and his family were based in Clew Bay, County Mayo. He was lord of the Ó Máille dynasty and ruler of Umall, descended from Maille mac Conall. The Uí Mháille were one of the seafaring families of Connacht, and they built a row of castles facing the sea to protect their territory. They controlled most of what is now the barony of Murrisk[5] in south-west County Mayo and recognised as their nominal overlords the Mac William Íochtar branch of the Bourkes, who controlled much of what is now County Mayo. The Bourkes (De Burca) were originally Anglo-Norman but by Ní Mháille's lifetime completely Gaelicised. Her mother, Margaret or Maeve, was also a Ní Mháille. Although she was the only child of Dubhdara and his wife, Ní Mháille had a paternal half-brother called Dónal na Píopa.[6] Although typically during this period sons would inherit, Ní Mháille "was considered to be the legal retainer of the family land and seafaring activities".[7]

With shore castles like Carrickkildavnet, the Uí Mháille taxed all those who fished off their coasts, which included fishermen from as far away as England. The head of the family was known simply by his surname as Ó Máille (anglicised as The O'Malley). Local folklore had it that Ní Mháille, as a young girl, wished to go on a trading expedition to Spain with her father. Upon being told she could not because her long hair would catch in the ship's ropes, she cut off most of her hair to embarrass her father into taking her. This earned her the nickname "Gráinne Mhaol" (Irish pronunciation: [ˈɡˠɾˠɑːnʲə wɨːlˠ]; from maol meaning bald or having cropped hair), usually anglicised as Granuaile (/ˌɡrɔːnjəˈweɪl/).[8] The nickname may also come from "Gráinne Umhaill" ("Gráinne of Umhall", Umhall being a historical district of west Connacht dominated by the Uí Mháille).[9]

As a child she most likely lived at her family's residence of Belclare and Clare Island,[2] but she may have been fostered to another family, for fosterage was traditional among Irish nobility at the time. She was probably formally educated, since she is believed to have spoken in Latin with Queen Elizabeth I in 1593.[10]

Clare Island, associated with Gráinne Ní Mháille

Ní Mháille was married in 1546 to Dónal an Chogaidh Ó Flaithbheartaigh, tánaiste or heir to the Ó Flaithbheartaigh (O'Flaherty) title, which would have been a good political match for the daughter of the Ó Máille chieftain. As Ó Flaithbheartaigh tánaiste, Dónal an Chogaidh had expectations of one day ruling Iar Connacht, the area roughly equivalent to modern Connemara.[11]

She bore three children during her marriage to Dónal an Chogaidh:

• Eoghan (Owen):[12] The eldest child, known to be kind and forgiving. Sir Richard Bingham tricked him; Owen was murdered as a result, and Bingham and his troops took over his castle.
• Méadhbh (Maeve):[12] Said to be much like her mother, she married Ricard Deamhan an Chorráin a Búrc, 'the Devil's Hook', with whom she had several children. Ní Mháille and a Búrc were supposedly very close, more than once saving her from death.
• Murchadh (Murrough):[12] Murrough was said to take after his father, for he enjoyed warfare. He often beat his sister Maeve, and refused to listen to his mother because of her sex. Many sources report that he betrayed his family and joined forces with Sir Richard Bingham after the murder of Owen. When Ní Mháille heard of this she swore she would never speak to Murrough again for the rest of her life, though she would often insult him. After Dónal an Chogaidh's death, Ní Mháille left Iar Connacht and returned to Ó Máille territory, taking with her many Ó Flaithbheartaigh followers.[13]

In 1565, Dónal was killed in an ambush while hunting in the hills surrounding Lough Corrib; this was, undoubtedly, part of Dónal's wider struggle with the Joyces for control of Hen's Castle on the lough. Gráinne returned to her own lands and established her principal residence on Clare Island (now called Granuaile's Castle). She allegedly took a shipwrecked sailor as her lover. The affair only lasted briefly as he was killed by the MacMahons of Ballyvoy. Seeking vengeance, Gráinne attacked the MacMahon castle of Doona in Blacksod Bay and killed her lover's murderers on Cahir Island. Her attack on Doona Castle earned her the nickname 'Dark Lady of Doona'.[14]

Rockfleet Castle

By 1566, Ní Mháille had married a second time, this time to Risdeárd an Iarainn ("Iron Richard") Bourke, his nickname deriving from his ironworks at Burrishoole, the place of his principal castle and residence.[15] The 1st Viscount Mayo was a child of this marriage.

Still not satisfied with her revenge, Ní Mháille then sailed for Ballycroy and attacked the garrison at Doona Castle, overpowering the defenders and taking the castle for herself.[16] Her attack against the MacMahons was not the first time she interrupted someone at their prayers. Legend tells of another lord who stole property from her and fled to a church for sanctuary. She was determined to wait out the thief, maintaining that he could starve or surrender. The thief dug a tunnel and escaped, however, and the hermit who took care of the church broke his vow of silence to scold her for attempting to harm someone who had sought sanctuary. Her reply is not recorded.[17]

More than twenty years after her death, an English Lord Deputy of Ireland recalled her ability as a leader of fighting men, noting the fame she still had among the Irish people.[18][19]

In 1576, Ní Mháille engaged in the surrender and regrant process with the Lord Deputy Sir Henry Sidney in respect of her lands. Because Rockfleet was over a week's march from Dublin, and as she was so often at sea, control by the Crown was very weak.

In 1593, in his letter to protest Ní Mháille's claims against him, Sir Richard Bingham claimed that she was "nurse to all rebellions in the province for this forty years".[20][21] Bingham was Lord President of Connacht, tasked with controlling local lords who had, until then, been mostly autonomous.

Ní Mháille had every reason, and used every opportunity, to limit the power of the Kingdom of Ireland over her part of the country. An expedition from Galway led by Sheriff William Óge Martyn attacked her castle at Clare Island in March 1579. However, they were put to flight and barely escaped.

The meeting of Grace Ní Mháille and Queen Elizabeth I (a later illustration from Anthologia Hibernica, vol. 11, 1793)

In the late 16th century, English power steadily grew in Ireland and Ní Mháille's power was steadily encroached upon. In 1593, when her two sons Tibbot Burke and Murrough O'Flaherty, and her half-brother Dónal na Píopa were captured by the English governor of Connacht, Sir Richard Bingham, Ní Mháille sailed to England to petition Queen Elizabeth I for their release. Elizabeth I famously sent Ní Mháille a list of questions, which were answered and returned to Elizabeth. Ní Mháille then met with the Queen at Greenwich Palace, wearing a fine gown; the two of them were surrounded by guards and the members of Elizabeth's royal court.[22]

Ní Mháille refused to bow before Elizabeth because she didn't recognise her as the "Queen of Ireland".[22] It's also rumoured that she had a dagger concealed about her person, which guards found upon searching her. Elizabeth's courtiers were said to be very upset and worried, but Ní Mháille informed the Queen that she carried it for her own safety. Elizabeth accepted this and seemed untroubled.

Some also reported that Ní Mháille had sneezed and was given a lace-edged handkerchief from a noblewoman. She apparently blew her nose into it and then threw the cloth into a nearby fireplace, much to the shock of the court. Ní Mháille informed everyone that in Ireland, a used handkerchief was considered dirty and was properly destroyed.

Their discussion was carried out in Latin, as Ní Mháille spoke no English and Queen Elizabeth I spoke no Irish.[10] After much talk, the women came to an agreement that included that Elizabeth would remove Bingham from his position in Ireland, and Ní Mháille would stop supporting the Irish lords' rebellions.[22]

Bingham was removed but several of Ní Mháille's other demands (including the return of the cattle and land that Bingham had stolen from her) remained unmet, and soon Elizabeth sent Bingham back into Ireland. Bingham continued to plague Ní Mháille and in 1594 troops were quartered on her lands.

As the Nine Years' War escalated, Ní Mháille sought to retrench her position with the crown. On 18 April 1595 she petitioned Lord Burghley, complaining of the activities of troops and asking to hold her estate for Elizabeth I.[23] She added that 'her sons, cousins, and followers will serve with a hundred men at their own charges at sea upon the coast of Ireland in Her Majesty's wars upon all occasions...to continue dutiful unto Her Majesty, as true and faithful subjects'.[24] Throughout the war she encouraged and supported her son Tibbot Burke to fight for the Crown against Tyrone's confederation of Irish lords.

She most likely died at Rockfleet Castle around 1603, the same year as Elizabeth's death, though the year and place of Ní Mháille's death are disputed. Her family's usual burial place was in Clare Island Abbey.

In her 2006 biography of Ní Mháille, Irish historian and novelist Anne Chambers described her as:

a fearless leader, by land and by sea, a political pragmatist and politician, a ruthless plunderer, a mercenary, a rebel, a shrewd and able negotiator, the protective matriarch of her family and tribe, a genuine inheritor of the Mother Goddess and Warrior Queen attributes of her remote ancestors. Above all else, she emerges as a woman who broke the mould and thereby played a unique role in history.[25]

Documentary evidence for Ní Mháille's life comes mostly from English sources, as she is not mentioned in the Irish annals. The Ó Máille family "book", a collection of eulogistic bardic poetry and other material of the sort kept by aristocratic Gaelic households of the period, has not survived. There are no contemporary images of her. An important source of information is the eighteen "Articles of Interrogatory", questions put to her in writing on behalf of Elizabeth I.[26] She is also mentioned in the English State Papers and in other documents of the kind, an example being a letter sent by the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, to his son Phillip in 1577: "There came to mee a most famous femynyne sea captain called Grace Imallye, and offred her service unto me, wheresoever I woulde command her, with three gallyes and two hundred fightinge men ..."[27]

Local traditions concerning her were collected by Irish scholar John O'Donovan in the 1830s and 1840s on behalf of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. In a letter of 1838 he describes her as being "most vividly remembered by tradition and people were living in the last generation who conversed with people who knew her personally".

Charles Cormick of Erris, now 74 years and six weeks old, saw and conversed with Elizabeth O'Donnell of Newtown within the Mullet, who died about 65 years ago who had seen and intimately known a Mr Walsh who remembered Gráinne. Walsh died at the age of 107 and his father was the same age as Gráinne.[28]

A story is recorded of Ní Mháille chiding her son Tíoboíd in the course of an attack on Kinturk Castle, when she thought he was shirking the battle: "An ag iarraidh dul i bhfolach ar mo thóin atá tú, an áit a dtáinig tú as?" ("Are you trying to hide in my arse, the place that you came out of?").[29] She is also recorded as saying, with regard to her followers, "go mb'fhearr léi lán loinge de chlann Chonraoi agus de chlann Mhic an Fhailí ná lán loinge d'ór" (that she would rather have a shipload of Conroys and MacAnallys than a shipload of gold).[29]

Statue of Gráinne Ní Mháille in Westport House

Westport House in County Mayo, Ireland, was the seat of the Browne dynasty, Marquesses of Sligo, direct descendants of Gráinne Ní Mháille. The current house was built close to the site of Cahernamart (Cathair na Mart - "fort of the beef market"), an Ó Máille fort. The original house was built by Colonel John Browne, a Jacobite, who was at the Siege of Limerick (1650–51), and his wife Maude Bourke. Maude Bourke was Ní Mháille's great-great granddaughter.

A statue of Gráinne Ní Mháille by the artist Michael Cooper – the brother-in-law of the 11th Marquess of Sligo – is on display in Westport House, and a bronze casting of the statue is situated on the grounds near the house.[30] Westport House also contains a comprehensive exhibition on the life of Ní Mháille compiled by author Anne Chambers, a leading authority on Granuaile.

Ní Mháille's life has inspired many musicians, novelists, and playwrights to create works based on her life and adventures and she has been used as a personification of Ireland:[31][32]

• Gráinne (given name)
• Irish galley
• Castlekirk
• Inishbofin, County Galway

Sources

• O'Dowd, Mary (2008). "O'Malley, Gráinne (fl. 1577–1597)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20753. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Schwind, Mona L. (1978). "Nurse to all rebellions: Grace O'Malley and sixteenth-century Connacht". Éire-Ireland. 13: 40–61.

• Grace O'Malley" page by Anne Chambers
• Gráinne Mhaol, "The Pirate Queen" by Patrick Flannery
• Judy Staley's article about Grace O'Malley on Rootsweb
• Best of Legends entry on Grace O'Malley
• Granuaile story and poem
• The song where Grace O'Malley is celebrated, Óró 'Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile