Original subtitles

[Narrator] The O'Malley clan ruled western Ireland

with a fierce stronghold on both land and sea.

The chieftain's daughter, Grace O'Malley,

was drawn to the ocean.

[Expert 1] Where Grace O'Malley is concerned,

the sea is in her DNA.

[Narrator] Defying the conventions of her era,

she rose to become a feared captain and clan ruler,

dominating Irish waters for 50 war-torn years

as an infamous pirate and respected leader of men.

[Expert 2] She was a force to be reckoned with.

[Expert 3] In a period of time when women did not have power.

[Narrator] Her battles took O'Malley

from the Highlands of Scotland to the heat of Spain

and the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

She carved her mark on history and legend

and will forever be known as Ireland's Pirate Queen.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Tara Rider] 16th-century Ireland is not a nation.

There is no sense of Ireland as a whole.

You have all of these clans that

rule their small territories.

[Oliver Finnegan] This was a very different system

to having a singular kingdom.

There was a lot of moving parts

in terms of the politics of any given region.

[Narrator] An extensive domain in western Ireland

and the waters beyond

has been claimed by the O'Malleys.

[Anne Chambers] The O'Malley clan are associated with the sea

even before written history of Ireland.

In the old legends of Ireland, if you mention an O'Malley,

it was always to do with the sea.

One of the medieval poets of the time called them

the lions of the green sea.

[Narrator] Dubhdara O'Malley is the head of the clan

and a fearless sailor.

His fierce reputation, strength, and resilience

earns him the nickname Black Oak O'Malley.

[Chambers] Being a maritime clan,

plundering and piracy was part and parcel

of seafaring at that period and, indeed, long before it.

The richest fishing grounds in Ireland happened to be

off the west coast of Ireland, which was O'Malley territory.

[Rider] So, they are able to basically tax

those who want to sail in their water.

They have enough power that they go,

"This is our water. You want to traverse it?

Please pay us."

[Connie Kelleher] One example, for instance, is in 1553.

King Philip II of Spain paid 1,000 pounds a year

for 21 years to ensure that his Spanish fleets

could use the waters around the coast of Ireland for fishing.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Chambers] Grace O'Malley was born around the year 1530,

and she was actually the daughter

of the O'Malley chieftain.

[Narrator] The wild Irish sea

courses through young Grace's blood,

and yet her desire for the waves remains forbidden.

Boats are no place for girls, a female presence on board

supposedly inviting bad luck and worse weather.

To a superstitious clan, O'Malley's place was at home

and not at sea beside her father.

[Rider] And we have to recognize by the age of seven,

a young girl would be starting to take on the responsibilities

of becoming a female in a society

that is very patriarchal.

Definitely, if she was older,

she would be starting to think about, you know,

potentially getting married and running her own house.

But Grace wanted to go to sea.

[Narrator] According to legend, Grace is warned

that life at sea is too dangerous for women,

her long hair a hazard among sheets and sails.

She hacks it off in defiance,

earning herself a moniker-- Grace the Bald.

[Chambers] You have this young girl whose father agrees

to take her to sea...

...to instruct her

as he didn't do his son who lived nearby.

So, we have to look and see why is this,

and we will have to come to the conclusion

that the daughter made the better seaman.

And you had to know what you were doing.

It's a very, very dangerous coastline

all along the west coast of Ireland.

Still is today, still has its many tragedies every year.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Grace swiftly proves her worth as a sailor,

absorbing everything her father teaches.

Soon after, she joins him on voyages of trade and piracy

in the Irish seas and beyond.

♪ ♪

[Rider] There's a lot of really strong currents there,

which means they have very easy access to go all the way down

to areas like Spain and France.

But it also allows them to go

along the northern part of Ireland and trade with Scotland.

And we know that the O'Malleys had gallowglasses.

[Narrator] Gallowglasses are fierce Scottish mercenaries

employed by the Irish to fight battles between clans.

These soldiers for hire

held no political interest in the conflict,

engaging in warfare for money.

[Rider] Part of what allowed the O'Malleys to be strong

was that they had not only the access to these waterways,

but they had the knowledge of these seas,

and that's part of what makes them so very strong.

[Narrator] Grace O'Malley is now a trusted sailor

in her father's fleet,

but she remains more valuable to him in other ways.

Dubhdara informs his daughter

that she's to leave the sea behind

and is soon to be married.

[Chambers] Her marriage would have been arranged for her

and had to pay political, social, and monetary gain

to both her family and to her clan.

The O'Flahertys and the O'Malleys

occasionally came to blows,

and it was really to try and cover over this animosity

that had grown between two neighboring tribes

that Grace O'Malley's marriage was made with the son

of the chieftain of the O'Flahertys.

[Narrator] Upholding ancient tradition

and her father's wishes,

O'Malley marries Donal O'Flaherty,

marking a fresh chapter as she settles into family life.

♪ ♪

[Chambers] She had two sons with Donal O'Flaherty and a daughter,

so she became a full-time mother from about the age of 17

to around her early 20s.

But also, as the wife of a chieftain,

she has to look after him.

[Narrator] Donal, O'Malley's husband,

is doggedly ambitious but also dangerously reckless.

Waging war on neighboring clans,

he fosters ugly feuds with powerful enemies.

Donal's miscalculated attacks lead to distrust

in his decision-making, placing his leadership at risk.

[Rider] The O'Flaherty men start to recognize

that Grace is really more the leader.

[Kelleher] She very much capitalized

on that Celtic religious approach

where women were equal to men.

[Narrator] Before long, Donal's exploits catch up with him.

Overwhelmed and outmatched,

he's cut down by a rival clan

whilst fighting for ownership of a fortress, Cock's Castle,

leaving O'Malley a widow.

[Chambers] And when his body was returned to Grace O'Malley,

she mourned her husband.

She buried her husband.

And this is where she goes on her first act of revenge

because she takes his clan and goes and takes back

the castle that he had lost and died for.

[Narrator] O'Malley destroys her enemies,

fighting in her husband's memory.

Cock's Castle is now hers,

and in honor of her victory,

is renamed Hen's Castle.

[Chambers] And it is the name it still bears today

and is still visible today.

Very rarely do women lead on the battlefield,

and this is the first time we see Grace O'Malley doing that.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Despite having avenged her husband's death,

the O'Flaherty elders

refuse her and her three fatherless children a home

or financial support, leaving her empty-handed.

[Chambers] And she was literally forced to come back

to her father's chieftaincy in Clew Bay, in County Mayo.

[Narrator] Another death throws Grace's future into question,

the passing of her father, Dubhdara,

leaving the O'Malley clan leaderless.

Spotting a rare opportunity,

Grace seizes the mantle of clan chief.

Long-standing tradition dictates that only men

can become chieftains,

but Grace cares little for such conventions

and nor do the men who loyally flock to her side.

[Chambers] She's supposed to have settled

on one of her father's castles on the beautiful Clare Island.

And it is there that she set herself up as a chieftain.

Whether they were attracted to her by her possibilities

as a seafarer or her charisma,

men from other clans, they agreed to come.

And over the years, she put together an army of 200 men

who followed her wherever she ordered.

This is where, I suppose, the Pirate Queen

of the Grace O'Malley story comes into play.

♪ ♪

She followed the business that was in her DNA.

She started toll-taking on the ships

that used the port of Galway,

so she made them pay tolls for safe passage

through what she considered O'Malley territory.

[Rider] Grace O'Malley is not targeting treasure ships.

She's not bringing back gold and silver and precious jewels.

She's targeting small cargo ships.

It could be cloth, potentially wine.

It could be various foodstuffs.

It doesn't matter whether you're an English ship, a Spanish ship,

or even an Irish ship, you are considered fair game

because it is about family and clan.

[Chambers] There are many references to her plundering.

For example, down in Thomond in County Limerick,

she's found there.

She's also found up in Donegal at this time,

taking cattle mainly from the clans

who would have been neighboring the sea,

all along the west coast of Ireland.

And in Ireland at the time,

there was no such thing as currency.

Everything was based on the price of, literally, a cow.

So, to have as many cattle in your possession,

that was your wealth,

and Grace O'Malley admits herself to having

almost a thousand head of cattle and horses.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] As Grace O'Malley and her clan raid further

and increase in power,

frightening rumors of her piracy reach English shores.

[Rider] The English have been involved in Irish politics

since the 12th century.

But by the time we're getting to the 16th century,

this is a period of nation building

for countries like England and Spain and France.

And England recognizes that

if they cannot control Ireland as a whole,

that she would become a threat.

Spain could use it as a jumping-off point,

a launching point to attack the English.

And they are seeking to bring Ireland

fully under English control.

And the challenge is there is no one king of Ireland to capture.

You have all of these different clan leaders.

[Narrator] Queen Elizabeth I rules over England

in her father's shadow.

Henry VIII had established a foothold in Dublin

as part of his campaign to conquer Ireland.

Elizabeth needs to expand her territories peacefully,

if possible, but by force if necessary.

The English have control over Dublin.

Now their gaze shifts west.

[Chambers] The conquest of Ireland

now takes on a new urgency.

Henry VIII tried to seduce the Gaelic chieftains

to adopt English law,

English custom, and English titles.

Some of the bigger chieftains

actually did take on English titles,

and in theory, became English subjects.

The O'Malleys did not do that.

[Finnegan] In the context of Grace O'Malley,

this meant that in the world that she lived in

with the clan system, she could hold a position of authority

and indeed be a ruler.

In a world where English authority

was extended into Ireland,

it will be very tough for her to hold a position of,

shall we say, government authority,

or she would be subordinated to an authority.

[Chambers] And it is during these traumatic periods

for the latter half of the 16th century

that Grace O'Malley has to operate within that scenario.

[Narrator] The English catch wind

of Grace O'Malley and her clan

but are powerless to stop her.

Not only does she bear unrivaled knowledge

of the Irish Sea, but there's a versatile fleet

of ships and seasoned sailors at her disposal.

[Chambers] One entry in the state paper

says there are no other galleys in Ireland like these.

[Kelleher] On the tomb of Grace O'Malley,

there's a representation of a galley,

which looks like a substantial vessel.

[Chambers] The galley was an extraordinary vessel.

It had adapted over time to the lateen sail,

the triangular sail,

which made it much more versatile on the sea.

The old Viking square mast could only sail with the wind,

whereas the galley, with its lateen sail,

could maneuver against contrary winds.

It also had a very shallow

draft, which meant that it could

come very close to the shore,

which for Grace O'Malley

and her trade

by sea was very, very important.

[Rider] Throughout the archives, including in this period,

basically reference anything from 3 to 20 galleys.

Even three would be pretty significant.

20 would be a small navy if we're thinking about it.

By having these galleys, she has the ability

to really cover a broad amount of territory.

She could travel potentially all the way down to Spain.

She has the sail power and the manpower to do this.

[Kelleher] At the same time,

she was looking beyond her territorial waters

to gain greater control and greater power.

[Narrator] As the English slowly extend their control

from Dublin,

Grace O'Malley seeks to expand her own domain

in western Ireland.

[Rider] This is an interesting period

because this is when we see the pragmatic side

of Grace O'Malley coming out.

She wants to claim full control of Clew Bay.

At this point, there is only one castle

that she does not control,

and it's at kind of an important junction

within the waterways there, and that's Rockfleet Castle.

[Chambers] Hidden away with a fantastically sound

anchorage for her ships,

the owner of this castle is called Richard-In-Iron Bourke.

He was quite a powerful chieftain in Mayo at the time

and was next in line to succeed

to the overall chieftaincy of all of Mayo.

[Rider] And so she makes the very political,

pragmatic decision of "Let's get married."

And so this was seen as a meeting

of two very powerful leaders.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Grace enters into this marriage of convenience

with one ambition--

to take control of Rockfleet Castle.

In Irish law, both husband and wife have the legal right

to end their union after one year.

[Rider] The stories go that after a year and a day,

Grace O'Malley basically closed the gates of Rockfleet Castle

and said, "I divorce thee, but I'm keeping the castle."

And so this leads to total control of Clew Bay.

[Narrator] Grace places Bourke's shoes

outside the castle gate

in an accepted sign of divorce,

banishing her former husband from his own castle.

♪ ♪

Grace O'Malley takes command of Bourke's troops

to defend what is now her domain.

This bloodless coup further solidifies her control

of Ireland's western coast.

[Kelleher] She was playing a really clever political game.

She was trying to expand her area on the water

while also trying to expand her connections

and her influence on land.

And it all was to the betterment of her surviving

as a Gaelic ruler at a time

when the world around her was changing.

[Narrator] Rival clans and Queen Elizabeth I

are closing in on O'Malley's territories,

forcing the Pirate Queen to reunite

with her husband she abandoned, to strengthen her clan.

Soon, O'Malley falls pregnant with her fourth child.

[Rider] It is said that she was out at sea pirating

when they got into a battle with Algerian pirates.

[Narrator] Legends say O'Malley gave birth

to her son Tibbot at sea,

only shortly before their ship is besieged

by Algerian pirates,

the fearsome captain drawing her weapon

and rushing the deck in defense of her crew.

[Chambers] The pirates were taken aback

by this disheveled appearance

and hearing the child cry in the background

that they, for a moment, were taken off their guard.

[Rider] So, she goes onto the decks to rally them

and defeat these pirates.

This becomes a story of this woman who just can do it all.

♪ ♪

It really demonstrates why the English

are going to fear her so.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] The legend of Grace O'Malley spreads like wildfire,

her reputation as a cunning pirate and fierce warrior

earning her mentions in official correspondence

between Queen Elizabeth and her army in Dublin.

[Chambers] One dispatch says,

"The most notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland."

Another dispatch calls her

"A chief director of thieves and murderers at sea."

Another calls her, "A nurse to all rebellions in Ireland."

So, this identikit of this strange woman

is being built up at the Elizabethan court,

and it is amazing to read all these descriptions about her

in the English state papers.

[Rider] By the 1570s, we're seeing more and more pressure

being put on the English to not just claim on a map Ireland,

but to fully have Ireland under English law, English control.

[Narrator] Rather than seizing land by force,

Queen Elizabeth plans to offer titles to Irish chiefs

in exchange for their loyalty

under a policy labeled surrender and regrant.

[Kelleher] Many of them handed over their lands to the Crown

in agreement that they showed fealty to Queen Elizabeth.

And in turn, by doing so,

they were allowed to keep their lands.

[Narrator] O'Malley and her husband

embrace surrender and regrant,

pledging their loyalty to Queen Elizabeth

in order to become Lord and Lady Bourke.

As a subject of the Crown bound by English law,

Grace vows to end her career of piracy.

Satisfied with her pledge of allegiance,

the English return to Dublin, trusting that this will be

the last they hear of Grace O'Malley.

♪ ♪

[Finnegan] Not long after she pledged herself

to the English administration,

she sailed immediately south and started plundering lands

further down the west coast of Ireland

in violation with her agreement,

so, in effect, she'd gone back on her pledge almost right away.

[Narrator] In defiance of the English law

designed to bind her,

O'Malley continues to plunder ships and demand tolls.

[Kelleher] Again, we know that she went across to Scotland

and raided places there in her ships

and raided ships belonging to the Scottish lords.

So, she did undertake, I suppose,

direct acts of piracy.

[Finnegan] Grace O'Malley really used coastal raiding

and intercepting shipping as a form of warfare.

So, in other cases, if somebody had double-crossed her

or if she felt the need to get ahead of a political situation,

then she would raid towns.

So, she would move into a region, go into that town,

plunder what they had in the port and move on,

perhaps take hostages.

So, it had a political purpose as well.

♪ ♪

[Rider] As we're getting into the latter part

of the 16th century,

England is identifying itself with this idea

of being an island nation.

And as an island nation,

they need to control the seas around them.

Grace O'Malley is the figurehead

of all of the rebellions that are going on.

It's just simply the successes that her men and her vessels

are having in impacting

English trade, English authority.

By getting rid of her,

the English would be able to conquer and claim

leadership, authority, and power in this area.

[Narrator] There is now a target on O'Malley's back,

the English in hot pursuit of the Pirate Queen.

A long, tireless search by Elizabeth's men

leads to the eventual capture of the clan leader.

[Kelleher] Those captured with her were put to death,

so it was inevitable that she, too, would have thought

that perhaps this is how she was going to end her time.

[Narrator] Held in the gloomy dungeons of Dublin Castle,

O'Malley awaits her fate.

[Chambers] Only the highest political prisoners

were placed in Dublin Castle by the English.

And Grace O'Malley was considered one of these.

[Kelleher] There was no real communications.

There was no way of finding out

what was happening back home, as it were.

You know, you didn't have a proper bed to sleep in.

These were harsh conditions,

they were unforgiving conditions,

so it must have been a horrendous time

for Grace O'Malley.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, on the west coast of Ireland,

an uprising led by O'Malley's husband, Lord Richard Bourke,

threatens the dominance of the English in Clew Bay.

[Chambers] He has set up a rebellion in Mayo

to hope to be able to get her out.

[Narrator] Almost two years of O'Malley's life

have been spent in a prison cell.

But now her captors agree to release the pirate

if she swears to return home to Rockfleet Castle

and convince her husband to stand down his aggression

against the English.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Over a decade has passed,

Ireland's landscape dramatically altered

by an English Crown

insistent on tightening its grip over the country.

And Lord Bourke dies,

making O'Malley a widow for the second time.

It doesn't take long for the Pirate Queen to rebel,

snatching back her promise to the English

and taking to the open sea,

targeting any ship unfortunate enough to sail nearby.

[Rider] She is taking on an ever-growing myth

for the English as instigating and inciting

the Irish in this area,

and potentially the fear that one small area

would have a domino effect

and could then incite others to rebel

against English authority.

[Narrator] The Crown appoints Sir Richard Bingham

as the governor of Connacht.

A lifelong soldier with a well-earned reputation

for cruelty, he's determined to tame

the rebellious Pirate Queen at last.

[Rider] He is very much about bringing the Irish

under complete and utter control by any means necessary.

[Chambers] Where Grace O'Malley was concerned,

he took an instant dislike to her,

and he set out to really undermine her power.

[Rider] Very bluntly,

Bingham is not a fan of the Irish to begin with,

so she becomes the devil incarnate,

I guess we could almost say,

of what makes Ireland so uncontrollable,

and so he is actively going to target her.

[Narrator] Bingham's army rampages across the countryside

in a scorched-earth campaign

designed to starve the Irish rebels into submission.

His troops march on the O'Malley stronghold

of Clew Bay.

♪ ♪

[Chambers] Now, Grace O'Malley led three rebellions

against the very, very cruel rule of Sir Richard Bingham.

And three times, he backed off.

However, he got at Grace O'Malley

the way that one would get at a mother,

and that was by imprisoning her family.

He first had her eldest son, Owen O'Flaherty, killed.

And Grace O'Malley talks, as a mother,

how she counted 24 wounds on the dead body of her eldest son.

Her second son by Donal O'Flaherty

was called Murrough-ne-Maor O'Flaherty,

and when he decided to align with Bingham,

the vengeance of the mother knew no stop.

She gets into her galleys, attacks her son's castle,

and took some of his property to teach that son a lesson

that he was not to side with her enemy.

Bingham got to Grace O'Malley through the third son,

Tibbot, born aboard her ship at sea

and saved from the Algerian pirates.

[Narrator] Tibbot is arrested and imprisoned

on charges of treason.

♪ ♪

[Chambers] Grace O'Malley knows that Tibbot's life is at stake.

Treason was punishable by death.

And this is really what motivates her to try

and get directly to Queen Elizabeth I.

For somebody with a litany of misdeeds

registered against her in the English court,

it was absolutely, one would imagine, impossible,

but not to Grace O'Malley.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Desperate to save her son's life,

O'Malley attempts the impossible,

requesting an audience with the Queen of England.

Using her political connections,

she sends a petition to Elizabeth,

demanding the release of her son Tibbot.

[Finnegan] At the National Archives,

we have a petition issued on behalf of Grace O'Malley

to Elizabeth I.

And in the petition, she really outlines

and speaks to the difficulties of being a ruler

in Ireland in that period

and really just how she's had to advance her interests

just to stay afloat.

[Rider] Grace is creating an image of a powerful woman

but also indicating her loyalty to the Crown, while saying,

"I have also struggled because of your English administrators.

They've not taken me seriously. They've not given me my due,

even though I'm a loyal subject."

♪ ♪

[Finnegan] I think this is a very clever petition

in many ways because it's being addressed to Elizabeth I,

who is somebody who probably feels relatively similar,

that she's had to really fight for her position,

she's had to really advocate for herself

in a very politically difficult climate,

particularly also as a female ruler.

[Narrator] Queen Elizabeth accepts O'Malley's request

and grants her an invite to London.

[Chambers] So, Grace O'Malley, a known pirate,

a known rebel at this stage, had now a complete control

of her passage to England

because she had her letter of introduction

to the English court.

♪ ♪

So, in June 1593, to save the life of her son,

Grace O'Malley set out on the most important voyage

of her long and eventful career.

[Narrator] Queen Elizabeth agrees to an audience

with O'Malley, meeting the infamous pirate

and violent rebel at Greenwich Palace,

these two formidable women, who against all odds

have risen to become rulers of their people.

Stories escape the palace of tension building

as O'Malley refuses to bow to a queen she sees

not as a representative of God but as her equal.

[Rider] Grace O'Malley had taken this trip from western Ireland

all the way to London.

She'd come up the Thames.

It's, it's cold, it's clammy.

She had a bit of a cold.

One of Elizabeth's courtiers offered her a handkerchief,

and so she blew her nose

and then threw the handkerchief into the fire.

All of the English were appalled because from their viewpoint,

she had burnt a valuable piece of cloth.

It indicates kind of the, the social differences.

[Narrator] The legends continue.

The queen's guards discover a hidden dagger on O'Malley.

But Elizabeth accepts the pirate's assurance

that the weapon is strictly for self-protection.

Tensions subside as the two leaders begin to talk.

[Chambers] Queen Elizabeth was looked on

as the Queen of England, the leader of her army.

She never led an army in the field of battle.

She was looked on as mistress of the oceans.

She never sailed further downriver than Greenwich.

And here you had this woman who had done all the things

that Elizabeth was prohibited or unable to do.

And both women were of a similar age.

They were in their 60s.

So, you had two experienced elderly women

coming together to exchange views

and one hoping to get her son released.

♪ ♪

[Finnegan] What is perhaps surprising is that the petition

seems to have been completely successful.

I don't exactly think it was common

for a ruler from County Mayo to get on a ship

and sail to meet the Queen of England herself,

much less be granted an audience and get what she wanted.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] O'Malley secures the release of her son

and confronts her old adversary, Bingham.

But he refuses to believe that this ill-famed Irish rebel

could be granted such a favor from his queen.

[Rider] Richard Bingham very much thinks

that the Queen has been hoodwinked,

that she could not possibly have fallen

for whatever lies that Grace O'Malley had said.

And he actually refuses to enforce it initially.

So, there's definitely a questioning of authority there.

And the Crown very clearly says, "This is our will,"

which, as far as he sees, means that she is going to be able

to continue thieving on the high seas.

[birds squawking]

♪ ♪

[Rider] It is definitely, without a doubt, a victory

for Grace O'Malley.

And it's seen as having basically

bypassed Richard Bingham,

which ultimately is not going to make their relationship

any easier as you go forward.

[Chambers] Bingham took his revenge out on Grace O'Malley,

and any time her ship left shore,

he put on 20 English soldiers on her ships,

so she couldn't really pursue what she normally did,

a little bit of piracy and plundering

as well as her trading.

That was prohibited by Bingham.

So, in a way, Bingham did get some revenge on Grace O'Malley.

[Narrator] Bingham continues to place troops

on Grace O'Malley's ships.

He also forces her men

to operate in service of the English,

sometimes against their own kinsmen.

Under constant supervision,

and unable to plunder or take tolls from passing ships,

the O'Malley clan is forced to retreat inland.

[Rider] Ireland is not the world

that Grace O'Malley had been born into.

It is coming more completely

under the authority of the English Crown.

And it is no longer being done through a peaceful process

such as surrender and regrant.

We're seeing the English military might

being brought to Ireland,

and so the force of English authority

is very much at the end of a sword at this point.

[Chambers] So, the only thing that mattered to Grace O'Malley

was to be able to survive within this new structure

that was being forced upon them.

[Narrator] O'Malley can only see one way out--

to save her family from the tyrannical campaign

of the English, she must give up her fight,

handing over control of her army to Tibbot,

and agreeing to hold County Mayo

in the name of the Crown.

[Rider] Grace O'Malley is a survivor,

and that's an important element here.

She has survived all of the changing politics

up until this point.

And we see this coming into play at the Battle of Kinsale,

which is seen as the last great battle

between Gaelic leadership and English leadership

in the question of,

will they be able to overthrow English authority?

[Chambers] Now, two chieftains in Ulster at the time

decided to put behind them

centuries of intertribal warfare between both their families

to try and unite all the clans of Ireland.

[Narrator] 1601.

The English seize control of vast swathes of Ireland,

and at the Battle of Kinsale,

the remaining clans unite against their common enemy

in what would be the last stand for Gaelic Ireland.

Grace O'Malley dispatches Tibbot

and their armies to join the battle.

The Gaelic chieftains hope

the O'Malleys will arrive as allies,

to fight alongside their countrymen,

against the crushing might of the English army.

[Rider] Tibbot brings the O'Malleys to it,

and the stories go that he stood on the hill

and he kind of watched the battle and went,

"Which way is it going to go?"

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All of the Gaelic lords are excited,

the O'Malleys have come.

They will help turn the tide,

except he comes in on the side of the English army.

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[Chambers] And with 3,000 other royalist Irish,

he decided to fight on the side of the English

in order to preserve his own patrimony and his own future.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Narrator] These are the final years of Grace O'Malley,

her long career as a ruthless pirate now a distant memory,

her once-ferocious reputation

no longer deemed a threat to the English.

[Chambers] The Gaelic world, it petered out,

so Grace O'Malley did.

And I think it's right that we really don't know how she died.

It is said she is buried on Clare Island,

and indeed there's a lovely tomb there

that is said to be her final resting place.

[Narrator] 1603.

Queen Elizabeth dies.

And in the same year, so does Grace O'Malley.

After a reign lasting nearly half a century,

she leaves in her wake

a clan every bit as resilient as she was,

enduring the pounding onslaught of the English empire

and, against a sea of trouble, always finding ways to prosper.

[Chambers] All of the seafaring and all of the piracy

and toll-taking died with Grace O'Malley.

[Rider] If you look at the English archival records,

she is going to continue to be mentioned

for almost 25 more years.

English administrators are basically saying,

if it wasn't for Grace O'Malley,

western Ireland would have been less problematic.

[Kelleher] Her career spanned at least 40 years.

In the golden age of the Caribbean,

18 months was looked upon as a successful career for a pirate.

Grace O'Malley died in old age, still as a ruler,

so she was extremely successful as a leader,

as a pirate, as a Gaelic lord.

In a way, she carried out, to the letter,

the motto of the O'Malley clan,

which is "maintenance by land and by sea."

[Rider] She goes from simply being a historical figure

to being part of living memory.

And she becomes a symbol of hope and ultimately of survival.

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