Pirate Queen: The Life of Grace O'Malley by Judith Cook

Author:Judith Cook [Cook, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780277158
Google: 4Er5zQEACAAJ
Publisher: Birlinn, Limited
Published: 2021-05-06T23:31:34.041184+00:00

9

‘. . . She Thinks Herself No Small Lady . . .’

Whatever deal Richard had struck with the English administration in order to save his own skin (even if he had other plans in mind), there was now no possibility of his going back to the old ways without courting danger. Connaught in general and Mayo in particular were no longer part of a western fringe to be left more or less to their own devices, but were very definitely part of the English government’s policy for the whole of Ireland. Conquest and the putting down of rebellions were only a part of it; the English administration had many other ways of extending its influence. Among these were settlement and plantation. Families with only the slimmest claims to land through ancient Anglo-Norman ancestry were encouraged to send their sons, particularly their indigent younger sons, over to Ireland to claim their supposed rights; in other words, to colonise the island. Settlement or plantation land was also handed over to those like Edmund Spenser who had, in various capacities, served the Crown in Ireland.

In September 1581 Richard-an-Iarainn received (literally) the ultimate accolade. He was knighted, presumably by the Lord Deputy Grey, on behalf of the Queen, no doubt with the intention of making him part of the very system against which he had rebelled and ensuring that he stuck to the terms of his agreement and kept the peace. But Richard being Richard, within a year he was fighting again. His enemy was his old rival, Richard MacOliverus, the brother of the previous Macwilliam who was still smarting over the loss of the chieftainship. To rub it in, Richard-an-Iariann raided his namesake’s land, claiming that he was doing so in order to collect various rents due to the Crown. In the ensuing battle a number of Richard MacOliverus’ clansmen, including his own son, were killed. The incursion rapidly brought down on the raider’s head the wrath of Malby who demanded, in view of what he had done, that he hand over one or other of his two elder sons to be held hostage to their father’s better behaviour.

Presumably Richard again fell into line for in September 1582 he and Grace were invited by Malby to a meeting and major social event at the governor’s own house in Galway. It was a prestigious party to which the Earl of Thomond, Lord Byrmingham, Sir Murrough ne Doe O’Flaherty (he of the recent rebellion) and a whole string of clan chiefs were invited; also their wives. Grace, in her new role of Lady Bourke, succeeded in putting herself forward in a way that led to one of history’s most quoted references to her. Malby, duly reporting back to Sir Francis Walsingham on the success of the function, details who attended, pointing out that on this occasion the wives of those involved were also invited and that ‘among them Grany O’Mally is one who thinketh herself no small lady’. He concludes by hoping that this new-found amity will lead to peace in the province.

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