Pirate Queen: The Life of Grace O'Malley, 1530-1603

by Judith Cook

In a life stranger than any fiction, Grace O'Malley, daughter of a clan chief in County Mayo, went from marriage at fifteen to piracy on the high seas. She had a fleet of galleys under her command (four of them Scots). In 1559 her husband was killed in an ambush and not long after she took as a lover a survivor of a shipwreck. Clansmen came over from Scotland and murdered him. She tracked them down and had them killed, and from then on follow episodes of plunder, kidnapping, piracy and general mayhem. In 1586 she was captured by the Earl of Ormond and was actually on the scaffold with a rope around her neck when she was saved on the orders of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth offered to make her a countess. Grace refused, but was officially allowed to be a 'privateer' thereafter. She may also have been an intelligencer for Elizab

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Pirates, Biography, Biography Memoir, Ireland, 16th Century

180 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Judith Cook was a lecturer in theatre at the University of Exeter. She wrote several mysteries based on the casebooks of Dr Simon Forman, an Elizabethan doctor and astrologer.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book just skimmed the surface of a big topic, and it was incredibly boring. One night, I read for 20 minutes and felt like I’d been reading for 7 hours. One thing about boring books is that they extend your life, so I gave this 3 stars instead of two.

[Clodagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting pirate adventures but this book is no fairy story it's a great historical document set in a time during which Ireland changed vastly from a country of perhaps 60 kingdoms ruled by clan chiefs to a more homogenous colony of England ruled by the king or queen.
Grace O'Malley or Grainemhaoil is a fascinating character who got to the top of her game “maintenance by sea and land” (plundering to you and me. Arrr!) at a time when women had very little control of their destiny. She was a skilled sailor and must have had amazing charisma to keep her galleys full of sailors willing to fight and die for her... or sleep with her if she fancied them! Judith Cook suggests that Grainemhaoil may have been a spy for Queen Elizabeth who lived around the same time. She also queries why so little is known about this woman, unique in many ways. Was it because she was such a tough cookie, taking advantage of opportunities betraying the english government or the irish as required? It's not really a model for Irish women to emulate.
The politics of the time is hard to keep up with, double crossings abound and loyalties shift like sand – at war with the clan on the west this week, the clan on the east next month, the invaders tomorrow. Whew.
I learned a lot about Irish history and the terror involved in colonialism.
I highly recommend this book!

[Sunhawk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having already read a novel in which Grace O'Malley figured, I was pleased to read a meticulous historian's narrative about this remarkable woman. I liked the author's style, in particularly her casting of historical events in the light of current expressions: without minimizing or betraying the truth of the events, this lent a sense of immediacy to the writing. In context with the generous use of quotations (including the inability of the British to spell Grace's Irish name the same way twice in a row) I was entertained. Once again, I find myself reading (on the morning that the dinosaurs of the US Senate are again crucifying a woman in their quest to pack a Supreme Court opposed to women's rights and the rule of law) about the life of a woman who was, the late 16th Century, "independent, highly skilled, very brave and, above all, a great survivor." While we may have come a long way, baby, we still have a long way to go.

[G. Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is okay, but more depth would have been welcome.

[Niamh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Call me picky. But calling ‘Grainne’ her ‘nickname’ when it’s just her name in Irish (the language she spoke) is just dumb.

Insisting on calling her Grace even though NO historical quote refers to her as such (and never referring to ‘Grace O’Malley’ as a modern anglicism) is also. Dumb.

Just absolutely should have been written by and Irish person.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

[Joan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grace O'Malley is a fascinating character. Ms Cook has done a lot of research and tries to present a well rounded interpretation of O'Malley's life. Unfortunately, Cook is not a skilled writer. The book is full of typos and bad grammar. This is not a scholarly work by any means, but if it is all you can find it does provide some interesting information.

[Bo Schutte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think i would give this 3,5 stars, if that were possible.
Its a nice, but complicated book about one of the most interesting woman I've heard about.
It has some great stories that are chronicled here, however I did get lost in all the relationships between the clans and their members, who supported the crown and what Grace was doing at the time.
It's unfortunate that the book has more info about the people around Grace than Grace herself (mainly because women didn't really have the spotlight in those times). However, it was still fun to read and learned something about Irish history!

[Norah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating stuff, she was quite a woman! Love the references to places in Galway where we were this summer, and to Mayo where my mother lived as a child. A difficult book to follow, due to the strange, even to an Irish mind, names, the number of characters, and the complications of English/Irish history which has not even been well chronicled over the years. However it was a worthwhile read, and kept me glued to the very end.

[Anthony Stephenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoying read, but I felt Grace was rarely more than an afterthought in a lot of the chapters

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

A librarian suggested this book to me months ago, it being of interest to her. I put off reading it while I read books more to my liking. It turns out that I was a bit underwhelmed by the book. It wasn't quite what I expected it to be based on its summary, and perhaps the fact that I chose it based on a librarian's recommendation caused me to consider it with more esteem than it was warranted based on so little information. It is not that the book was bad. I found some parts rather interesting, but I did not realize when I borrowed it that very little of Grace O'Malley's history is known for certain, leaving some details to be filled with myths and conjecture. It is not necessarily bad in this case when facts are lacking, but I expected more of the information to be less mysterious. I also do not have very much background knowledge for this era, the social structure, and the people involved in the story, so it made it hard for me to follow Cook's narrative, especially when more than one person had the same name. It is a good read for anyone interested in this era and place, but they should be prepared for parts of the story to be the stuff of legend.

[Tien · Rating 3 out of 5]

🎧 Audiobook Review 🎧

A fairly interesting biography of Grace O'Malley -a noted historical female figure. Of course, while quite a bit of it can be inferred from papers and such; we are left to deduce what kind of person she was. Was she ever loyal to one nation or another? Was she truly a pirate queen intent only on plundering riches? Was she actually a spy for the Queen of England?

Life was terribly unkind to women in 16th century Ireland. Grace, while female, was born of a clan chief. It carries its own burden including being sold in marriage to another clan. From the sounds of it though, she landed on her feet, had a good head on her shoulders and earned the loyalty of her male followers. When her husband died, however, she had to leave and to make her own luck.

Grace O'Malley may have been intent on survival but the play of politics (such tumultuous times in Ireland, Scotland, and England) appear to have its own ramifications in hers & her family. Fascinating story especially when she just disappeared from the last pages of history - where did she go?

[Celeste McGoogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judith Cook's Pirate Queen is a clear and concise biography of Grace O'Malley, a fierce woman who lived in Ireland in the 16th century. Cook says she became interested in O'Malley because she was a strong woman in a difficult time and place for females. My impression was that O'Malley did not fight for women's rights; she took them. She learned to lead a ship full of men from her father, and she fought fiercely on both land and sea for herself and her sons. Ireland did not allow widows to inherit from their husbands, so she went home to her parents' land, taking with her many of her late husband's men and soldiers who willingly followed her.

Cook's account is that of a historian. Anyone looking for a historical romance will be disappointed at the academic seriousness of the book. However, readers who want to discover an accurate biography of Grace O'Malley, including the historical context of her lifetime, will be delighted.

[Jake Farrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very little of the book is actually about Gráinne herself; it's more realistically a history book about the time period, regularly jumping from France to Spain, to Scotland, then England, and back to Ireland again. It isn’t even a particularly good biography, with what little of Gráinne actually features referring to her as "Grace"—a name only used after her death, which she herself never used. I got the sense that Cook definitely tried to downplay much of what is attributed to her in myth. Even if there might be some grain of truth, Cook seemed, at least to me, to wave it off as “oh, what silly nonsense.” Honestly, the only reason I’m giving the book 3 stars instead of 2 is because Gráinne has been my childhood and historical hero ever since I first learned about her in primary school. I’d recommend Chambers’ biography on Gráinne instead, as she treated the woman with much more respect and wasn’t as dismissive as Cook’s attempt at a biography.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In part, Cook's biography of Grace O'Malley is more a biography of the times that O'Malley lived in as opposed to the woman herself. This isn't really Cook's fault as primary sources and information are to a degree scanty.

Yet, as someone who has read quite a bit about the Tudor period, I found a good portion of the book to be things that I already knew and in a couple cases, such as Mary Queen of Scots, was wondering why so much space was given over to them.

That said, Cook does an excellent job of tracing the career of O'Malley, and she is very even handed in looking at the story vs what the truth was.

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information contained in this book made it worth the read. If the information was not so fascinating (and believe me, it is - there are incredible accounts of lives and events in this book), it would have been hard to get through, as the writing is not the best, there are so many individuals spoken of that you forget who they are after a chapter (ideally they would be organized in some trees at the beginning), and the author isn't always as critical of her source information as I think she should be.

[Jack Creagh-Flynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book goes over historical documents and inference of practices of the time to endeavour constructing a chronology/biography of the life of Grainne (a.k.a Grace) O'Malley. The author compares and contrasts the folklore of the figure with what can be gleamed from historical evidence and what is known about the time. It was an interesting read, and I am glad to have read it.

[Jacquie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for a fun read on Grace O’Malley and got a detailed history of the mid to late 1500s In Ireland and England. The book was subtitled “The Life of Grace O’Malley 1530-1603”. Truly I learnt more about the clans and the role of Scotland during that time than I did about Grace. I guess we are fortunate to know anything at all!

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grace O'Malley was "a woman who, in spite of everything, was independent, highly skilled, varied brave and, above all, a great survivor" (180). Cook's book describes the backdrop of Grace's time and the 1580s conflicts between Ireland, England, Scotland, and Spain. The historical references were interesting. The fate of Grace, Pirate Queen, is unknown to this day.

[Ceilidhchaos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and concise analysis of the life of Grainne O' Malley from the primary sources and putting her historic life into its historic context. A couple of the later chapters were hard to finish, but overall excellent.

[Lorelei · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was barely about Grace O'Malley. There were just passing mentions of her in relation to the constant squabbles between the English, Spanish, and Irish.
The writing was also lacking. There were many typos and grammatical errors.

[claudia v · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though historically accurate, this story reads more like a thesis than a
biography

[Thea Marlowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love reading about strong women❣️

[Collin Reynolds]

A fantastic subject bogged down in family politics, clan names and minutiae. Well researched but a dull read for anyone but an Irish Historian.

[Joan Huehnerhoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I have read highly fictionalized stories of her life, but this book dealt in facts. there was speculation supported by historical documents, but I found the book fascinating.

[Ryan Tingley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately very little actually about Grace O'Malley herself or piracy, and mostly about the history of Irish Clan wars. Quite disappointing.

[Denise Kruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bounty of Irish/English history that is a little dry, perhaps because there is so little known about the person herself. I liked it but am craving a swashbuckling fictitious account.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a fascinating historical figure. Unfortunately this biography, while giving a decent overview of her life, proved somewhat less than engrossing.

[Saoirse Byrne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book isn't about GRACE O MALLEY!!It's about the life that happened around her. Like I has to keep looking for pages where the story was actually about her. But tye parts about her were well researched but like I would have loved it to be more about her life.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judith Cook's book, 'Pirate Queen: The Life of Grace O'Malley, 1503 - 1603', is a most informative read. The book is not so much about Grace herself as it is about the era in which she lived - one which was turbulent to say the least. Additionally, and also of note, is that Cook does a remarkably good job of charting the somewhat byzantine 'quagmire' which constituted the Irish political landscape of the time, one of ever changing loyalties.

While Cook's scope of research and attention to detail are commendable, often, due to the dearth of surviving material relating to Grace, coverage afforded is patchy. This is particularly true of her very early years and her final ones too. Nonetheless, while some may paint aspects of Cook's re-construction of Grace as fanciful, having read the book you do feel as though you have more of an appreciation for the human aspect of Grace, the woman as opposed to the legend. Furthermore, the character which Cook re-constructs for the reader, to my mind, is an interesting one, in so far as it articulate how 16th century woman were indeed well able to hold their own in the messy game of 'power-politics'.

In terms of style, Cook is engaging and easy to read. All in all, a worthwhile read for those interested in the history of Elizabethan Connaught.

Happy Reading,
Gavin