Grace O'Malley, the Early Years
Grainne Mhaol's Life From Childhood to Pirate Chief 1530 - 1565
Grace O'Malley (1530-1603) defied belief, resisted definition, despised convention, and ultimately took on the greatest enemy her land had yet encountered. And won!
We do not know when it was exactly that Owen ”Dubh Dara (Black Oak) O’Malley first suspected that his tomboy daughter Grainne might one day be the logical person to inherit his fleet of ships operating from his island fortress off the Mayo coast. Maybe when she shaved her head as a teenager and began cadging rides on her father’s ships as they traded and pirated on sea routes between Ireland and the Moroccan coast. Or it maybe when his daughter, watching from the rigging when their ship was boarded by English pirates, cast herself screaming upon a dagger-wielding cut-throat sneaking up behind her father on the deck below – the diversion enough to thwart the attack and allow her father’s men to repulse the invaders.
Or maybe it was never, since despite his daughter’s proven prowess in seamanship O’Malley married her off at 16 years of age to Donal O’Flaherty, elected chief of the powerful clan that controlled the mainland adjoining O’Malley’s Clare Island base.
And for fourteen years it seemed that Grainne had resigned herself to a domestic role. Her three children grew up in the comfort of Bunowen, O’Flaherty’s headquarters, and their acquisition of O’Malley’s fleet secured for her a private income. Then, in 1560, all changed utterly.
A clash of interests
O’Flaherty was killed in a dispute with a rival clan, the Joyces, and Grainne immediately stepped into the breech. Ignoring Salic Law preventing women from inheriting leadership she appointed herself chief of the Flaherty clan and now, as leader of his army, set about avenging his death. After routing the Joyces in battle she then set her sights on rebuilding her father’s old maritime fleet with the ‘windfall’ she had acquired through confiscating their property. She moved her large fighting force back to Clare Island, and soon ships flying the O’Malley flag were back on their familiar routes. But this time there were more of them, better equipped , better manned, and – thanks to the growth of English shipping – they were becoming increasingly harder to describe simply as ‘trading vessels’. Piracy, always a fallback option in the O’Malley family “business”, had now become Grainne’s trademark, and her area of operations extended dramatically, with shipping unsafe from her attentions from the Azores to the Baltic. Her fearsome reputation began to spread, first among those who shipped Irish waters, and soon right to the heart of the English administration itself.
Hugh DeLacey
Along the way she even acquired a new lover, literally fishing him out of the sea after his ship foundered. Hugh DeLacey, after convalescing as Grainne’s guest on Clare Island, opted to stay on as something rather more. He was from a noble Norman Irish family and, like all his peers, had a foot in both Gaelic and English camps. DeLacey must have taught Grainne much of the political reality that now pertained in Ireland but had largely passed Connemara by. She for her part learned quickly, and eagerly in his company. They took to doing everything together. DeLacey accompanied Grainne on her voyages and, when touring her now extensive estates in Connemara, the couple were often to be seen hunting on horseback together. It was on one of these hunting trips that members of the O’Mahony clan, probably hoping to gain kudos with the English administration, ambushed them. DeLacey, the love of her life, was killed.
With him died much in Grainne also, but if the O’Mahonys thought this would mean her being incapacitated through grief then they had another think coming. DeLacey’s death signaled the end of a chapter in Grainne’s life. A new and terrible one was about to open.
Sources:
"Granuaile: Ireland's Pirate Queen - Grace O'Malley c. 1530-1603." Author: Anne Chambers Publishers: Wolfhound Press 1982 ISBN: 0836279139
"The great O'Neill: A biography of Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, 1550-1616 " Author: Sean O Faolain Publishers: Mercier Press 1981
