John Maidment's Blog

Gráinne Mhaol ([ɡra:ɲə we:ɫ] or [ve:ɫ] in Munster Irish) is the nickname of a feisty lady.  Her real name was Gráinne Ní Mháille, and she is generally known as Grace O’Malley in English, which is a bit odd because Gráinne and Grace are not at all connected in meaning.  She lived from about 1530 to about 1603 in County Mayo in Connacht in the west of Ireland.  She was the daughter of Eoghan Dubhdara Ó Máille, head of a clan which was unusual for the Ireland of the times in that they were sea-farers and levied taxes from all the fisher-folk who ventured into the waters off their native lands, including fishermen from England.

According to legend, when Gráinne was a young girl she wanted to go on a trading mission to Spain with her father, but he forbade it, saying her long hair would get caught in the ship’s ropes.  Gráinne promptly cut her hair short, thus shaming her father into letting her go with him. It was thus that she got her nickname, because maol means “bald, shaven-headed”.

Bronze statue of Gráinne Mhaol at Westport House, County Mayo

After two marriages, numerous alleged extra-marital affairs, and the possible birth of an illegitimate son, Gráinne became what the Elizabethan state considered to be a pirate. She had castles and fortifications all down the western seaboard of Ireland and forced ships to pay taxes on imports, either in gold or in goods. There were various encounters with English forces, and finally Sir Richard Bingham, the English governor of Connacht managed to capture two of Gráinne’s sons and her half brother. Gráinne set sail for England to petition Queen Elizabeth I for their release, and the two women met in 1593. They apparently took to each other, even though they had to converse in Latin, because Gráinne spoke no English and Elizabeth spoke no Irish. They came to an agreement that the captives would be released, Bingham would be replaced and Gráinne would stop being a nuisance to the English. The peace didn’t last long however, and Gráinne went back to her pirating ways and resumed support for the rebellion of the Irish Lords.

Gráinne Mhaol has been taken up as a symbol of Irish resistance to the English, and features in folk songs such as Óró sé do bheatha ‘bhaile, which originally was written in support of Bonny Prince Charlie. Here are the last two verses and the chorus. The tune is familiar to most Brits, being the one later used for What shall we do with a drunken sailor?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Hero(in)es, Irish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.