The walls of Carrick Clooney
Now lie crumbling and low
Its battlements dismantled are
All most o;er every stone.
But the rebel youth in Westport
Feel their Irish hearts aglow
When they tell how Grace O’Malley
Fought and conquered in Mayo.
Irish Minstrelsy Vol.II
Granuáile (1530-1603), Grace O’Malley in the modern English, lived in Connaught, in the West of Ireland, during the reigns of Henry VII and Elizabeth. Her father was Owen "Black Oak" O’Malley, chieftan of the Umhall Uachtarach. In a culture where most women spent their lives in anonymity as they tended to household matters Granuaile ignored this tradition and instead distinguished herself as a brave and skilled leader respected by her people, other ruling families and their adversaries, the English administrators and rulers.
In The Narrative Creation of Place: The Example of Yeats, Pat Sheehan Sheeran suggests that we understand landscape through the language and the stories that describe it. That a sense of place is shaped by the narrative that is connected to it. "Text is an appropriate trope to employ because landscape, like text, is a social and cultural production as well as an instrument of communication." p. 151
If we use text and narrative to understand a landscape we have to consider who wrote the stories, who they were written for and told to, and how they become attached to a place. Irish poetry in this period was written by men, for their patrons the chieftans, also men, to glorify their families and exploits, with barely a nod to the chieftan’s wife. The annalists of Ireland, also men, recorded many events in Irish history, not all of them were momentous. Nowhere did they mention Granuaile, chieftan, seafarer, warrior, politician, the O’Malley of Connaught.
Yet, her name is connected to places and traditions all over western Ireland. We know she is more than legend because her name and deeds were recorded by the English tors. A petition to Queen Elizabeth for assistance resulted in a list of questions about her life. Her reply contains Granuaile’s story, as she wished it to be told.
During her lifetime England began and largely succeeded in its campaign to take control of Ireland. The Gaelic tribes controlled much of the Irish landscape when she was born but, as Gaelic laws, traditions, and customs were replaced by those of the English, their power over the landscape, and control over their own lives was lost.
When Granuaile was born the Gaelic community had for centuries followed the Brehon law which governed such matters as land rights, marriage, and clan leadership. At the same time, the Anglo-Irish community followed a very different set of laws. "One of the sharpest and most enduring contrasts between them concerned the treatment of women." Women in Norman Ireland, Katherin Simms p. 14
Most Gaelic woman could not own land but were allowed to keep cattle and other goods. Their husbands did not take ownership of all of their possessions upon marriage and wives were entitled to some rents from their family’s or their husband’s lands and to participate in family business affairs. Many wives of Gaelic clan leaders participated in the political maneuverings of hostage takings, war-making and peace settlements. The Brehon law allowed for easy divorce in the first year by either partner, a principle that Granuaile would take advantage of when it suited her ambitions.
The Anglo-Norman woman could inherit land under certain circumstances but when she married all of her property and possessions became her husband’s who was her sole guardian. Only legitimate children had inheritance rights. Women were not allowed control over their own affairs and any influence they had over their husband’s business matters had to be exerted indirectly. Divorces were also allowed under Anglo-Norman law.
"what is clear is that the position of high-born women in early Irish society was in comparatively high profile; wielding influence and power, they possessed a freedom before the law quite astonishing in comparison with the stunting imposition of feudal and later English law upon the position of women in society." The Historical Image, Margaret MacCurtain p. 40
We know little of the lives of higher-class women of this time, and almost nothing of the lower-classes. They probably worked as housemaids, bakers, and brewers, earning wages to support their poor households. It is likely that the man shared some of what little power they had with the women out of necessity.
The shift in power from the Gaelic and Anglo-Norman to the English and the resulting laws and culture took away, to a large extent, what voice and power the women of Ireland had. "It was a great century for women in Irish history, and a terrible one in the aftermath of their eclipse." MacCurtain p. 41
The stories of most of the women during the 16th century have been lost. Granuaile’s story lives on.
Though Gaelic women were allowed some say in their family’s or husband’s affairs, most of the power was reserved for the men. Granuaile defied these laws and traditions by taking command of her tribe and controlling the lands around Clew Bay.
Much of Granuaile’s power resulted from her strong connection to the ocean. For centuries, Granuaile’s family had lived and ruled on the islands and land on and near Clew Bay. There were huge numbers and varieties of fish in the bay and surrounding waters and the clan caught, salted and stored them to use as food and trade. Gaelic clans were prohibited from trading in Galway City so those clans with their own boats traveled to traded barrels of fish and cattle products for wine, fabrics, spices and other foreign goods. The O’Malleys also had large land holdings and horse and cattle herds. Summers were spent on land tending cattle, repairing boats and nets and hunting.
The O’Malley’s were great seafarers, familiar with the coastal hazards of western Ireland and daring enough to risk the unpredictable weather and encounters with pirate ships that were a danger on the long journeys to foreign trading centers. The O’Malley’s power and independence depended on their access to the ocean and their skills on the ocean. "The sailing prowess of the clan has been immortalised in legend and song and it is this characteristic that distinguishes them from their contemporaries." Granuaile, Anne Chamberlain p.21
Granuaille must have felt the call of the ocean at an early age. She was born on Clare Island, at the mouth of Clew Bay, and spent most of her childhood at Belclare Castle in west Ireland. She became a respected expert navigator, and supported herself and her followers with the bounty from her fishing, trading and even pirating expeditions. The sea was the source of Granuaile’s strength and in the most difficult of times she retreated to the landscape where she had the most power, Clare Island and the ocean.
While her mother and the other women of the household would have spent their days preparing meals and taking care of the castle, she must have been allowed to sail with her father where she studied the features of the west coast, learned to predict the sometimes violent weather and practiced the negotiating skills she would need later when dealing with ship’s captains, clan leaders, traders in foreign lands, and Queen Elizabeth.
At the age of sixteen Granuaile married Donal O’Flaherty and moved to Bunowen, a remote castle accessible by a long, hidden sea-inlet. It was probably a marriage arranged by the clans, linking two powerful seagoing families. They had two sons and one daughter. As wife of a clan leader she would have been hostess to her husband’s many visitors and managed the household activities.
In the early days of Granuaile’s marriage Gaelic culture dominated most of Ireland. Then, Henry VIII, fearful that England was vulnerable to attack through its long-neglected colony decided it was time to take back control of the land. England was still recovering from previous wars and did not have many resources. Henry made an offer to the Gaelic and Anglo-Norman leaders: if they would surrender their lands to the crown he would return it to them under his name and bestow appropriate titles. The ownership of the land was returned to them but their power and the traditional Irish laws and culture were lost. By the time Henry died in 1547 he had gained control over Leinster and parts of Munster, the lands of the Anglo-Norman lords.
The Gaelic chieftans were not so anxious to submit to the king. The landscape of Ireland’s west coast and midlands had not been previously explored and it was unfamiliar to the English. This made it easier for the Gaelic chieftans to avoid English rule and continue their laws and traditions without interference from the administrators that had moved into the submitted lands. The English could not exert power over an unknown people living in a remote, uncharted land. Nevertheless, in the early years of Granuaile’s marriage, Henry’s plan had already started to shift power in Ireland. Then Queen Elizabeth was crowned.
"Across the Irish sea, another woman was also preparing to assume her role in a man’s world and she was to excel and be immortalised as the greatest ruler England has ever known. Her impact on Ireland would leave an indelible mark and was to close the door forever on the way of life which Grace knew. Granuaile, Chambers p. 63
Gradually, Granuaile took a leadership role in her husband’s political and economic affairs. She negotiated tribal agreements, went on fishing expeditions, and lead attacks on passing ships. Her trading missions took her to Munster, Ulster, Scotland, Spain and Portugal, where she traded local produce for wine, spices, fabrics, glass and iron.
In 1564 Murrough O’Flaherty, from a different branch of the clan than Granuaille’s husband, submitted to the queen and she gave him the title of The O’Flaherty. This meant that Donal could not himself become the O’Flaherty. Then, after an attempted rebellion in 1570 the MacWilliam also submitted to the queen. For the first time, the queen’s administrators and English law began to undermine the power of the Gaelic leaders of Connaught.
Not long after Donal lost his right to become the O’Flaherty he was killed by the Joyces while hunting. When they tried to regain control of the castle (named "the Cock" by the Joyces for his fierce defense of the castle) Donal had wrested from them, Granuaile fought so bravely and well that they named her "the Hen" and the castle became Hen’s Castle. Years later as she once again defended the castle, Granuaille had the leaden roof melted and poured onto the attacking English.
When Granuaille did not receive her widow’s pension she recruited 200 men and returned to her father’s territory. From Clare Island she ruled over Clew Bay. Passing ships were charged fees for passage or navigational services. Her followers prospered under her leadership.
At this time Richard-an-Iarainn, son of David Burke, resided at RockFleet on the northeastern side of Clew Bay. Granuaile’s husband Donal was his uncle. When David Burke’s son Walter was murdered, many assumed that Donal was involved in an attempt to secure a place for his sister’s husband as the next MacWilliam. Granuaille married him, probably to secure an inland sanctuary. After one year she Granuaille divorced him according to Brehon law and took over his castle. Successful in the expansion of her landholdings, she continued to live with him as his wife, bearing him a son.
Granuaille continued her career on the ocean, much to the dismay of English authorities. When the English sent troops and ships to Rockfleet she fought for days and managed to force their retreat. "It was a resounding victory for Grace, a victory that must have enhanced her position greatly as a leader and a force to be reckoned with." Chambers p. 82
In 1576 she submitted to the crown assuming that because her lands were so removed from English control that she could continue with her own laws and traditions. In 1578 she was captured and held in Dublin castle, released on the promise that she would stop her illegal exploits. After her husband became the MacWilliam in 1580 her power was recognized by the other ruling families and the English administration. Sir Nicholas Malby wrote to Sir Francis Walsingham about a meeting of Connaught’s leaders and nobility:
Earl of Thomond, Lord Byrminham, M’William, Richard M’Oliverus, Walter Burke, Murrough ne Doe O’Flaherty, O’Maddin, M’Morris, M’Davy and many gentlemen and their wives, among them Grany O’Mally is one and thinketh herself to be no small lady, are at the present assembled to make a plat for continuing the quietness." Chambers p. 101
Granuaille is the only wife mentioned by name. Unlike her contemporaries her voice is heard, her story recorded.
There is another legend that Granuaille went to Howth castle and found the gates locked. The lord refused to see her because he was having dinner. She kidnapped the Howth’s heir and demanded as ransom a promise that Howth’s castle gates would always be open and an extra plate set at the table. The residents of Howth castle keep this promise today.
The next years were tumultuous for Granuaille. In 1583 her husband died. She was not about to lose her land and power again. She took her followers and 1,000 head of cattle and horses and established herself as chieftan of Rockfleet castle and the lands around it, despite both Gaelic and English laws prohibiting a widow from such power. There was no one powerful enough to challenge her.
In 1586 she was arrested and sentenced to be hanged. Her daughter’s husband gave himself as a hostage in her place and she was once again released. The political climate in Connaught was turbulent. The Gaelic clans struggled under English administration and alliances were made and broken. Evenually Granuaille lost much of her land and was forced to retreat to Rockfleet. Her ability to lead her fleet and move along the coastline kept Granuaille in command of her lands long after other leaders had lost their power. Then, in 1592 the English were able to gain control of Clew Bay. She no longer reigned over her beloved ocean.
Granuaille decided to petition Queen Elizabeth for the return of her lands and her fleet. The queen responded with 18 questions asking for details about her family, marriages, children, and the events after her husband’s death leading to her plea to the Queen. Here is one response to the question of how Gaelic widows were treated: "The countries of Connaught among the Irishry never yielded any thirds to any woman surviving the chieftan whose rent was uncertain, for the most part extorted, but now made certain by the composition and all Irish exactions merely abolished." Chambers p. 131
When her son and brother were arrested Granuaile sailed to England seeking a petition with the queen. She was summoned to Greenwich castle and after meeting with Elizabeth her family was released. Elizabeth also ordered that her sons provide for her with rents deducted from their taxes.
By the time Granuale was 60 the political climate had shifted and her son and son-in-law had allied themselves with Elizabeth against the O’Neills and the O’Donnell. Once again, her fleet was free to roam the coast. As late as 1601 the activities of her fleet are recorded by the Queen’s private secretary. It appears that Granuaille died at Rockfleet in 1603, the same year as the battle of Kinsale. Granuaile’s Ireland was gone.
Using Heidegger’s essay Building, Dwelling Thinking Sheehan argues that "man dwells only when he is able to concretize the word in buildings and things. Building transforms a site into a place, confers definition and meaning…Dwelling means to be at peace in a protected place." p. 158, He goes on to say "The Anglo-Irish, we might say, dwelt in a land to which they did not belong and the Irish belonged to a land in which they did not dwell." p. 159
This thinking betrays a colonizer’s perspective. That the "civilized" occupant knows how the landscape should be lived in. That somehow their way is the right way and they need to show the people already there how best to experience their own places. They propose that structures and cultivation are necessary to improve a landscape and that if a landscape is not changed by the people that live in it, they aren’t really "dwelling" there. They have to believe this in order to justify the seizure and exploitation of someone else’s landscape. The manner in which the English came to occupy Ireland meant they could not possibly "be at peace in a protected place."
Heidegger’ essay talks about the way men dwell in a place: by building things, and making them safe, not the way women dwell in a place, by nurturing the plants and animals that will feed their families, keeping the fires hot and the larder full in these men’s buildings, and bearing and raising the children, especially the sons, that will bind their husband’s names and not their own to the landscape. Granuaile never took her husbands’ name.
Many of them are lost to us but the Granuaile’s landscape had its own stories. The O’Malleys were powerful and well-known for hundreds of years before she was born. When she sailed the seas with her father he would have told her how her ancestors came to be the O’Malleys, ruling Clew Bay and the shores of Connaught. Perhaps she learned her mother’s stories also. She must have remembered these glorious stories when she stormed her ship’s deck, the day after her son was born, to repel the pirates that had boarded it, or killed her lover’s murders and occupied Doona castle to become The Dark Lady of Doona. They surely were with her when she sailed her ships and stood watch from her castle windows, knowing that she ruled everything she could see.
The landscape of Connaught is alive with Granuaille’s name and stories. Clare Island, Doona, Rockfleet, Hen’s Castle, Howth Castle. Granuaile did not build the castles she lived in but the Gaelic people did and she made them hers. She was never at peace in them but they were protected places. Somewhere within the English records and the legends that surround her is the truth of a remarkable life.
Granuaile was an extraordinary woman. She was also a warrior and a pirate. She was brutal and ambitious, negotiating when she could, waging battle when she had to. She defied the laws and traditions of both her people and the English, earning their respect and gaining their alliance.
In writes: "The conquest and plantations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries transformed the political social and economic structure of Irish society. From then until the great famine of the mid-nineteenth century there are only three general statements which can with any confidence be made concerning the role of women in that society. Firstly, they were totally without formal political rights; secondly, their property and inheritance rights both within and outside of marriage were now governed by English common law, and thirdly, theirs was a subject and subsidiary role to the male, and it was performed, for the most part within a domestic context." The Role of Women in Ireland Under the New English Order Gearáid Ó Tuathaigh p. 26
The events that occurred during Granuaile’s lifetime dramatically changed the lives of the Gaelic people. While the place that women held in that community was subordinate to men, in the new Ireland their voices were silenced, their stories lost. It is ironic that the woman from whom Granuaile received assistance, whose administration recorded her story, is the same woman who took the land from her people and silenced the woman of Ireland for centuries.
There is a slab in the abbey on Clare Island, built by the O’Malleys in 1224. Under the words O’Maille’ are the words Terra Mariq Potens. Power over Sea and Land. This is thought to be her final resting place.
Granuaile lives through her stories. She still dwells in the landscape of Connaught.
Bibliography
Man and the Landscape in Ireland F. H. A. Aalen Academic Press London 1978
IRISH STUDIES A General Introduction, Thomas Bartlett, Chris Curtin, Riana O’Dwyer, Gearoid Ó Tuathaigh Gill and MacMillan Dublin 1988
GRANUAILE The Life & Times Of Grace O’Malley c. 1530-1603, Anne Chambers, Wolfhound Press, County Dublin 1979
Irish Women: Image and Achievement Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Arlen House Dublin 1985
The Irish Countryside, Desmond Gillmor Wolfhound Press Dublin 1989
Women in Irish Society The Historical Dimension Margaret MacCurtain and Donncha Ó Corráin Greenwood Press Westport CT 1979