Granuaile was born into the clan Uí Mháille, a hardy, seafaring people on the west coast of Ireland. According to the ancient genealogies of Ireland, the O’Malleys were descended from the eldest son of a high king of Ireland, Brian Orbsen, who was killed at the battle of Dam Chluain, near Tuam, county Galway, circa 388 A.D. They were hereditary lords of the region called the Umhalls (umhall meaning territory), later anglicised as the ‘Owles’, a territory comprising the baronies of Murrisk on the south shore of Clew Bay and Burrishoole on the north. The barony of Murrisk, called Umhall Uachtarach or Upper Owl, included the islands of Clare, Inishturk, Caher, Inishbofin, Inishark and a multitude of smaller islands within Clew Bay. The barony of Burrishoole was called Umhall Iochtarach or Lower Owl and originally included the island of Achill. The two baronies were generally referred to as Umhall Uí Mháille (territory of the O’Malleys) or the ‘Owles of O’Malley’.

In 1235 the Anglo-Norman de Burgos invaded Connaught and in a great demonstration of military power swept aside the fragmented Gaelic opposition. In the transition of land and power that followed, the Butlers were granted some of the O’Malley territory in Umhall Iochtaracht—the barony of Burrishoole, known as Leath Fherghuis (Fergus’s half), Fergus being head of one of the three O’Malley septs. The Butlers built a castle known as Tyrenmore close to Burrishoole Abbey. They, in turn, were later dispossessed of the barony of Burrishoole by the sept of Ulick de Burgo, with the exception of Achill, which reverted back to the O’Malleys. This connection between the O’Malleys and the Butlers was to be effectively evoked 400 years later by Granuaile in her attempt to obtain an audience with Queen Elizabeth I.

The O’Malleys lived in relative harmony with their de Burgo neighbours, becoming their allies in war and through intermarriage. In 1342, the de Burgos, like many of their fellow Normans, renounced their allegiance to the English crown and adopted Gaelic names and customs. They divided into two branches. The Mayo Bourkes adopted the title MacWilliam Iochtarach (i.e the Lower MacWilliam) and the Galway Burkes became known as the MacWilliam Uachtarach (the Upper MacWilliam). The O’Malley chieftain gave his daughter Sabina in marriage to the new MacWilliam of Mayo. Unlike the other sub-chieftains who held under the MacWilliam, the O’Malley chieftain paid no rent in tribute to his powerful overlord but merely, as stipulated, a ‘rising out of six score bands to be maintained by himself, but they have maintenance for the first night from MacWilliam’.¹

The earliest written reference to the O’Malley territory of Umhall is in the fifth century with the ascent by St Patrick of the spectacular conical mountain then known as Cruachan Aigle (Eagle Mountain). In Tireacháin’s notes on the life of the saint contained in the Book of Armagh, it was written:

Patrick’s pilgrimage in 441 A.D. has been commemorated since by pilgrims from all over the world who each year walk in his footsteps to the summit of the mountain that now bears his name.

The rugged, scenic splendour of the Umhalls moved William Makepeace Thackeray to write in 1842: ‘It forms an event in one’s life to have seen that place, so beautiful is it and so unlike all other beauties that I know of’.³ The territory is encompassed by the peak of Croagh Patrick to the south, Mweelrea, Croaghmore on Clare Island and Slievemore on Achill to the west and the Nephin range to the north. At its heart is the broad expanse of the island-strewn Clew Bay, that ‘miracle of beauty’, with Clare Island at its mouth, a sphinx-like bulwark against the surge of the mighty Atlantic ocean that stretches away towards the western horizon. The Umhalls comprised some fertile land around Belclare and Murrisk and wide tracts of bog, marsh, lake, rivers, rough mountain grazing and extensive woodland. Apart from its scenic beauty, this sea-washed territory of the Umhalls was an appropriate base for a seafaring clan.

Although an island, Ireland has produced few seafaring families of note. The O’Malleys differed from the majority of Irish clans in that they derived their living mainly from the sea. Their clan motto, Terra marique potens (Powerful by land and sea), proclaimed them lords of the seas along the west coast of Ireland. In the ancient Book of Rights (Leabhar na gCeart) which lists the rights and tributes to be paid to the king of Connaught, it is thus recorded: ‘the command of the fleet to O’Flaherti and O’Mali, whenever he [the king] goes on sea or on the high sea’.⁴ O’Malley paid the king at his residence at Cruachan a yearly tribute of ‘one hundred milch cows, one hundred hogs and one hundred casks of beer’. The king, in return for O’Malley’s service, tributes and loyalty, presented him with the substantial annual gift of ‘five ships, five horses, five swords and five corselets’.⁵

Like many coastal families, the O’Malleys claimed a traditional overlordship of their immediate sea territory, including the right to levy tolls for safe passage and to sell fishing rights to foreign fleets. Writing in 1579, an English administrator seeking to abolish this custom recorded:

But unlike most coastal families, the O’Malleys were themselves intrepid seafarers, whose seafaring was not merely confined to Ireland. A fifteenth-century poem confirms what tradition has always maintained—that they traded and plundered as far as Spain and Scotland:

One of the earliest references to the name Uí Máille appears in 1123, in the Annals of the Four Masters recording that ‘Tadhg Ua Máille lord of Umhall was drowned with his ship at Aran.’⁸ From then the name appears frequently in various historical records. In 1413 the annals record how Tuathal O’Malley returned home from mercenary service in Ulster

The annals further state that 244 of Tuathal’s crewmen were drowned in this tragedy, an indication of his substantial seapower. It was this Tuathal O’Malley who, on being wounded in a quarrel with a poet, instead of claiming an eric (the legal payment for bloodshed), chose instead to have the poet compose a poem for him in atonement—an interesting insight into the cultural obverse of a warlike Gaelic chief, as well as an acknowledgement of the significance of poetry in the Gaelic world. In his bardic verses the poet eulogised Tuathal and praised him for his choice:

It required a special measure of skill and daring to extract a living from the sea along the formidable Atlantic seaboard. The sea routes north to Scotland and south to the Continent, along the indented western coastline, were hazardous. Impediments such as basic navigational aids, inaccurate charts, wooden-hulled ships and the ever-present threat of piracy added to the danger. But their mobility by sea gave the O’Malleys distinct advantages over their land-bound neighbours. It provided them with an escape route from their enemies in time of attack, an advantage much availed of by Granuaile and her sons. It allowed them access to foreign markets to sell their produce in exchange for goods unavailable at home. It is reasonable to assume that over the centuries O’Malley castles were bedecked with more exotic furnishings than their neighbours and their tables replenished with the wines of France and Spain.

Less tangible, but nonetheless advantageous, was the opportunity denied most of their land-bound contemporaries—to mingle with other peoples and cultures, to observe, to learn, to glean knowledge of events in the wider world outside of Ireland. To seafaring folk like the O’Malleys the sea was ever a highway, while landlubbers saw it only as a barrier. Recent research on trade links between Ireland and the Continent has confirmed what tradition has always held, that from the Middle Ages, Irish-owned ships, manned by Irish crews, regularly crossed the sea to ports in England, France and Spain. The ports along the west coast of Ireland tended to trade with Bristol in England and with those on the west coast of France and on the north coast of Spain.

For a sea-going clan like the O’Malleys, there was another incentive to trade their produce in foreign markets. Galway city was the centre of trade on the west coast. By the early sixteenth century it was considered ‘one of the first emporia of trade, not only in Ireland but, with few exceptions, in the British Isles as well’.¹¹ But the wealthy merchant families who ruled the city had enacted a series of restrictive bye-laws which prohibited nonresidents, particularly the Gaelic clans living outside the city walls, from trading there. Trade in wool, the mainstay of the Gaelic clans, was prohibited. In 1460, the Corporation of the city enacted:

This restriction, coupled with the racist sentiment of a later 1518 bye-law, which fined citizens who entertained their Gaelic neighbours within the city without licence of the mayor and council on any feast day, so ‘that neither O’ ne Mac shall strutte ne swagger thru the streets of Galway’,¹³ made it imperative that the O’Malleys should trade their produce in foreign markets, free from such taxes and impediments.

Fishing was an important source of the clan’s income. The fishing grounds off the coast of O’Malley’s lordship were considered one of the most fertile in Ireland. Herring, hake, cod, ling, turbot, salmon and shellfish were the main species caught. The fish was usually salted or smoked and packed in wooden barrels for export. Hides, tallow, frieze cloth, deer and sheepskins, furs such as pinemarten (considered a highly fashionable accessory in the sixteenth century), coney, fox and otter were other commodities from the west of Ireland which found a ready market abroad.

As in most coastal communities plundering and piracy supplemented the O’Malley income from earliest times. The ancient annals record with regular monotony O’Malley raids on outlying coastal settlements from Kerry to Donegal: ‘Eogan O’Máille went with the crews of three ships against Cille bega [Killybegs, county Donegal] in the night ... They raid and burn the town and take many prisoners’.¹⁴ Granuaile, who indulged in the profession with more success than most of her ancestors, was accused of being ‘a chief director and commander of thieves and murderers at sea’,¹⁵ and raided from the Scottish isles to the south coast of Ireland.

Piracy has been in existence for over five thousand years. From ancient Persia to modern-day China, every known civilisation throughout the ages has produced a pirate community. Depending on political and, to a lesser degree, cultural considerations, piracy has been viewed pragmatically by rulers down through the centuries. ‘The Ancient Greeks and Carthaginians had no qualms about piracy being proper conduct’.¹⁶ The Vikings used it as a means to establish footholds in Ireland, Britain and the Continent. In the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and along the north African coast, piracy flourished throughout history. In the Far East it was undertaken on a massive scale and still exists today as it does off the coast of Somalia. Granuaile’s contemporary Queen Elizabeth I gave her letters of marque to the pirate turned privateer Sir Francis Drake, when it seemed likely that his unlawful activities on the high seas would substantially supplement her state coffers. Granuaile’s career predated by a hundred and fifty years the careers of Caribbean women pirates—Irish-born Ann Bonny and her companion, Mary Read.

The struggle for power and profit at sea no more than mirrored a similiar struggle on land, but perhaps with more romance and notoriety. Piracy is often a symptom of political chaos on land and in Ireland in the sixteenth century, as the old Gaelic world faced the ultimate assault by a more powerful neighbour and slowly disintegrated, such was obviously the case. This period saw Granuaile’s career at sea reach its zenith. Her strongholds, situated deep within the inlets of Clew Bay, accessible only to those with a local knowledge of its dangerous channels, tides, currents, reefs and sandbanks, made capture or reprisal for her piracy activities, as it had for her ancestors, virtually impossible. It was not until the end of the sixteenth century when cartographers began to more accurately map the remoter havens of the west coast that time and the English navy caught up with her activities at sea.

There was another string to the O’Malleys’ maritime bow. The employment of mercenary fighters was a common feature of Gaelic warfare. The most renowned were the gallóglaigh (foreign warriors), the gallowglass who came from the isles and highlands of Scotland. They were hired annually, usually from May to October, by individual Gaelic chieftains or gaelicised Anglo-Norman lords, to fight against an enemy chieftain or lord. The Clan Donnell was the gallowglass family most associated with the west of Ireland and it was O’Malley ships which ferried them to and from their Scottish homeland. A branch of the Clan Donnell eventually settled permanently in Umhall as sub-chieftains of the O’Malleys. If the gallowglass were the mercenaries of the land, the O’Malleys might well be termed the mercenaries of the sea. O’Malley ships and crews were much sought after for hire by warring chieftains and, to judge from the many references in the annals to O’Malley involvement in battles and skirmishes throughout Ireland, there was no scarcity of work. This mercenary tradition was continued by Granuaile and her sons until the early years of the seventeenth century.

The number and size of the O’Malley fleet has never been precisely quantified. Irish-built trading vessels of the sixteenth century resembled a version of the clinker-built wooden cog of late medieval times. There are, however, many references to the number of ships under the direction of individual members of the O’Malley clan. Tuathal O’Malley had seven ships under his command in Ulster in 1413, while in 1513 Eoghan O’Malley attacked Killybegs with three ships. Granuaile is recorded as commanding from three to twenty ships at various times during her career.

The ‘galley’ was the ship associated with the O’Malleys and particularly with Granuaile. Wooden-hulled and clinker-built, it had a shallow draught which allowed it to manoeuvre in low water. Powered by as many as thirty oars and a single sail, it was a speedy and versatile craft. The galley is thought to have evolved from the long ships, langskips of the Vikings, the intrepid seafarers from Scandinavia. The typical Viking ship had a keel, a mast of pine or ash measuring up to 11 metres, a square sail, a single row of oars on either side, a side rudder affixed to the starboard quarter and could attain a speed of up to ten knots. Major developments in boat-building practices subsequently occurred, particularly in the fifteenth century. The single-masted ship, difficult to steer and able to sail only with the wind, gave way to lateen rigged two- and three-masted ships such as the carrack, galleon, galleas and galley. The Mediterranean-type galley had evolved from the ancient trireme but by the sixteenth century its once three-tiered oar power had given way to a row of single oars, each oar manned by several rowers. Long and narrow, these galleys often had as many as three masts, small decks fore and aft and could accommodate as many as three hundred men. Four of these galleys formed part of the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588 but were ill-suited to the northern seas.

Experts appear reluctant to accept that the O’Malley galleys were a far more substantial craft than the smaller Hebridean galleys, commonly depicted on stone slabs and tombstone carvings. Descriptions of the galleys commanded by Granuaile in the sixteenth century show that they differ substantially from these in size. In 1576 Granuaile could offer Sidney ‘three galleys and two hundred fighting men’ capable of sailing anywhere in Ireland or in Scotland. The State Papers further record in 1599:

In 1601 an English sea captain on patrol off the Mayo coast describes a skirmish with one of Granuaile’s galleys which was ‘rowed with thirty oars and had on board ready to defend her 100 good shot’.¹⁸ All the extant descriptions of Granuaile’s galleys point to vessels of considerable size, perhaps a cross between the Hebridean galleys of the North and the galleys of the Mediterranean. What we do know for certain is that they were of such strength, versatility and capability that for the space of fifty years they carried Granuaile and her army of ‘two hundred fighting men’, plus the plunder she accumulated en route, safely in dangerous and unpredictable seas off the coasts of Ireland and Scotland.

In 1991 a re-enactment took place of the 400-mile (640-km) voyage from Clew Bay to the Scottish isle of Stornoway, in memory of both Granuaile and Somerled, Lord of the Isles. The replica galley used had sixteen oars, less than half the number recorded on the galleys operated by Granuaile. From descriptions in the State Papers, it would appear that the galleys under Granuaile’s command were not only substantial but unique in Ireland. As Colin Mudie, designer of the Brendan and Argo vessels for Tim Severin’s epic voyages, as well as Granuaile’s replica galley mentioned above, warns:

For a seafaring clan, part of whose income was derived from plunder and piracy, it was essential that O’Malley land bases were strategically situated—secure from retaliation as much as sheltered from the elements. The ring of O’Malley castles strung around the shoreline of Clew Bay fulfilled these requirements admirably. The seat of the O’Malley chieftain was at Belclare Castle—the Fort at the Mouth (Béal) of the Plain (Chláir), the plain of Murrisk. It was situated at the mouth of the Owenwee river on the site of an ancient dún (fort). Inland from Belclare and to the southeast was a lake dwelling (crannóg) on the island in Moher lake, a place of refuge for the chieftain, his family and their valuables in time of danger. The family also possessed a castle at Cathair-na-Mart (Fort of the Beeves), situated near the present Westport House, a castle at Murrisk, Carrowmore, west of the present town of Louisburgh, Kildawnet on Achill Island and the castle on Clare Island.

Clare Island and Achill are the only O’Malley castles extant. Although not the main residences of the O’Malley chieftain, they afford some insight into the living conditions of a Gaelic leader from about the twelfth century. Both castles are strategically situated, with commanding views of the sea, yet undetectable by passing sea traffic. The castle on Clare Island is situated on a low, rocky headland looking eastwards into the broad expanse of Clew Bay. It overlooks a fine crescent-shaped sandy beach, suitable for mooring ships of shallow draught. Directly below is a sheltered creek which has deep water at high tide. The castle is three storeys high and once possessed battlements which gave an uninterrupted view of the open sea beyond the island. The three floor levels were connected by a stone stairway, straight rather than spiral, the more usual defensive access.

The strong rectangular castle of Kildawnet is situated on a slight promontory on the west shore of Achill Sound. The Sound, with its strong and unpredictable currents, is a sea-passage which connects Clew Bay with Blacksod Bay to the north. With local knowledge, it provided a swift access or escape north or south between Achill Island and the mainland. The entrance to the Sound at the southern end is protected by the island of Achill Beg. The castle itself is quite hidden from view from the outer sea and is surrounded by mountains and seascapes of the wildest splendour.

Like other Gaelic clans before the Reformation, the O’Malleys sustained orders of monks on their lands. The abbey at Murrisk was built by the O’Malleys in 1457 for the Augustinian friars on land granted by the chieftain Thady O’Malley. It is beautifully situated on a quiet inlet of Clew Bay, beneath the towering peak of Croagh Patrick. Built in late Gothic style, its single-aisle church and a range of domestic buildings are now in semi-ruin. One of its best preserved features is the delicate east window with its interlacing bar tracery and five trefoil parts. A striking feature of the abbey is its turreted south wall. At the western end of the church a partly vaulted tower once stood. Ironically, after the initial account of its foundation, nothing more was recorded about the abbey until notice of its proposed suppression on 27 March 1574, when Sir Peter Carew, in a despatch to the English Lord Deputy in Ireland, mentioned ‘the abbey of Moyriske possessed by Friars or rebels so as her Majestie hath no commoditie in the same’.²⁰ In 1578 the Queen leased the lands of the abbey to James Garvey. The friars, however, continued to reside in the abbey buildings. In 1635 a chalice, bearing the inscription: ‘Pray for the souls of Theobald, Lord Viscount Mayo and his wife Maeve Ne Cnochoure who had me made for the monestary of Mureske in the year of our lord 1635’, was presented to them. (Theobald or Tibbott-ne-Long Bourke was the son of Granuaile.) Murrisk Abbey would have featured largely in the lives of the O’Malley chieftains situated as it was close to Belclare castle. It is perhaps likely that Granuaile was baptised and married there and many of her kinsmen lie buried beneath its now roofless walls.

The abbey on Clare Island was built in 1224 by the O’Malleys two centuries before Murrisk. Originally a Carmelite cell, it was later attached to the Cistercian house at Knockmoy. The later fifteenth-century church consisted of a nave, chancel and sacristy, as well as a range of domestic buildings to the north, which no longer exist. In the chancel and thought to date from the fourteenth century, mural paintings, which once covered the entire ceiling in a kaleidoscope of colour, depict mythical, human and animal figures, including dragons, a cockerel, stags, men on foot and on horseback, a harper, birds and trees. On the north wall of the chancel is a well-cut, undated, limestone slab showing a stallion salient on a wreath above a Norman-style helmet, a wild boar trippant in the centre, with three bows, arrows affixed, pointing at the boar. At the right-hand base is a replica galley, with furled sail and five oars on a side, with the name ‘O’Maille’ and the O’Malley motto Terra Mariq Potens in smaller lettering above. The entire shield and crest is surrounded by mantling and is thought to date from the early seventeenth century. Beside the slab is a tomb canopy, with elegant cusped tracery which, although recent research suggests dates from the fourteenth century, tradition has always held to be the burial place of Granuaile. The Norman-style helmet on the stone slab could possibly have relevance to Granuaile’s second husband, Richard Bourke, the Mayo MacWilliam (1581–1583). The memorial and slab seem somewhat incongruous in such a remote setting and, if tradition is to be believed, this is indeed a fitting resting place for Granuaile.

After the initial setback at the hands of the de Burgos in the twelfth century, by which the jurisdiction of the O’Malley chieftains became restricted to Umhall Uachtarach and to Achill, the O’Malleys continued their seafaring activities with renewed vigour. By the sixteenth century they were, as the English State Papers acknowledge, ‘much feared everywhere by sea’.²¹ Politically they continued as an independent clan, the O’Malley chieftain being the only Gaelic chieftain in Mayo to retain his rank until the extinction of the title in the seventeenth century.