25. Grace O'Malley: Ireland's favourite Pirate since 1530

Grace O'Malley: The Pirate Queen of Ireland

In this lively episode, the hosts delve into the fascinating life of Grace O'Malley, also known as Gráinne Ní Mháille or the Pirate Queen of Ireland. Born in 1530, Grace defied the social norms of her time to become an accomplished mariner, fearless leader, and shrewd political tactician. The episode explores her early life, her rebellious spirit, her encounters with the English, and her audacious meeting with Queen Elizabeth I. Relying on various biographies and historical sources, the hosts uncover how Grace O'Malley's relentless determination and strategic prowess made her one of the most formidable female figures in 16th century Ireland. Listeners are taken on a captivating journey through tales of piracy, political manoeuvring, and courageous exploits on the high seas.

Other episodes mentioned: Ching Shih and Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin

Sources:
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/grace-o-malley-pirate-history-fact-fiction-legend

https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiegoldsmith/2022/11/22/irelands-most-famous-pirate-queen-grace-omalley/

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Grace-OMalley/487538

https://www.womensmuseumofireland.ie/exhibits/blog-post-title-one-jwrz7

https://www.irishpost.com/gallery/irelands-pirate-queen-twelve-fascinating-facts-about-legendary-grace-omalley-129406

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O%27Malley

https://www.graceomalley.com/index.php/grace-omalley/time-line#:~:text=1597%3A%20At%20the%20'great%20age,1603%3A%20Grace%20dies%20at%20Rockfleet.

Goodnight stories for Rebel Girls

Anne Chamber book Grace O Malley: The biography of Irelands pirate queen 1530-1603

00:00 Introduction and British Tipping Culture
01:03 A Pirate's Tale: Grace O'Malley
03:15 Grace O'Malley's Early Life and Family
06:50 Grace O'Malley's Rise to Power
09:56 Pirate Queen's Strategies and Wealth
14:16 English Expansion and Grace's Defiance
16:43 Grace O'Malley's Rebellion Against the English
17:41 The Abduction of Christopher St. Lawrence
20:14 Grace O'Malley's Conflict with Richard Bingham
25:50 Grace's Desperate Plea to Queen Elizabeth I
31:25 Grace O'Malley's Legacy and Final Years

Transcript

audio1663295054: 0:07

Obviously I tipped them at the end, but Why? Because I'm British. Oh yeah, that's lovely, thank you. Thank you. Always wanted to look like an eight year old football fan. Oh, I don't know. I can't make it better. It's not even hat season anymore. You can't even get away with a fluffy, like a woolly hat. Oh spring has officially sprung. Oh, it's lovely, isn't it? It's lush. Happy Equinox. Yes, happy Equinox. Vicky. Hi Simon, how are you? Yeah, very well thanks, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm good. It's nice to see you. Yeah, I'm only going to show you this side today because of my disastrous Turkish haircut. I see. It's a lovely side. Thanks for giving me that side. Thank you. Welcome. Yeah, my best side. That's the best side. I've always had it. Yeah. But yeah, other than that, pretty good what have you got for us today? I'm taking us back to our roots, which is pirates. Yes. So we're having another piratey day today. Another pirate day. Yeah. So we're going to Ireland. Okay. Yeah, I've got a little intro for you. From the rugged coast of 16th century Ireland, A legend arose. Ná Hvália, or Grace O'Malley, shattered conventions, leading her clan by sea and challenging English rule. A fearless Irish chieftain, pirate queen, and the only woman to negotiate directly with Queen Elizabeth I, her spirit embodies the resilience and strength of her heritage forever etched in Ireland's storied past. That's so cool. I love Crazy Money, yes. I like that we're taking in two 16th century female powerhouses. And they meet, they actually meet in the story. So yeah, it's a clash of the personalities for sure. Yeah. There is an amazing book which is the main source of today. It's by Ann Chamer who is the holy grail of all things Grace O'Malley, called Grace O'Malley, the biographer of Ireland's Pirate Queen, 1530 1603. But I've that's referenced in some of the articles that I've also Forbes article, we've got a Britannica article, we've got a Women's Museum of Ireland article the Irish Post, and of course, graceomali. com. Fabulous. There's also a Grace O'Malley Whiskey, which is the first whiskey to be named after a lady. And I think it was only in the, like in 2019 it started or something, like embarrassingly late, like crazy late for it. Yeah, that to be a fact, but anyway, so we should go and find some of that after. Oh, tenuously related fact that I learned this week. Hit me. There are 18 letters in the Irish alphabet. Is that it? Yeah. That makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah, so her Irish name, my understanding is it's pronounced Garnia Ni Walia. Walia. But we, I will be saying Grace O'Malley because I can pronounce that respectfully. That's what we're going to be doing. We're in Tudor times, which I don't think we've done before. So she was born in 1530 most likely off the West coast of Ireland. Island is an island. And then off of that, on the west coast, there's like a smattering of islands. It's possible that she was born there near Clue Bay. She was the only daughter of her father, Owen o Marley and her mum margaret O Marley. Do you know what a chieftain is? A chieftains, like head of a clan. Chief Chieftain. Yep. That's it. The O'Malley clan were a great seafaring clan, her dad was the chieftain and it was around this time where Henry VIII was actually king of England, so he was on the throne, but crucially he held the title Lord of Ireland, so we don't really have that title anymore. We have Prince of Wales, don't we, but we don't have. Lord of Ireland. So her father Owen was a great leader was, their whole heritage is sea bearing. So 300 years they've been ruling the waves. They tend to have their income, which was collecting taxes from anybody who passed through on the sea. They were pirates. So we're not hiding the fact that she just grew up a pirate. Yeah. Okay. So I was just about to ask, are they a legitimate operation or were they the next sentence I've got was they were ruthless and terrorized ships trading in Galway Bay. So I doubt it. It doesn't sound legit. Yeah. 300 years. That's a long time to keep it going. It's quite an arc, isn't it? It's quite a legacy. They taxed those who fished off their coasts. They traded as well in some coastal areas, particularly in France and Spain, which is going to become crucial. They also built a row of castles facing the sea to protect their territory. Wow. And in the Forbes article, you can see the lady who wrote the Forbes article, she goes on this adventure, which is quite cool. Today there might be a mix of folklore and fact. It's really hard to define the two. I've tried to rely on Ann Chambers biography as much as possible. But there's no denying that as a young girl, Grace was just dying to go on the ships this is what she wanted. She wanted to be like her dad. There is a story that she was told no, and the best reason her dad could come up with was no, because your hair's too long, which was like an ode to her being a girl, basically. I always picture male pirates with long hair, so I don't see why that's an issue. And we're in Ireland, so it's red hair. It's like long, beautiful, mane red hair. Sounds incredible. Yeah, gorgeous. On the illustration which was done for the Rebel Girls book, illustration by Catherine Arnister, that's fair skin, long red hair. Yeah. Stunner. So to rebel him. So he, this rebel personality is coming in already. She cut off her hair and then was like now what dad? You said, I could go if I have short hair. Yes. So they, this earned her the nickname Garnier. Wallo, which means, Wallo means bold or having cropped hair. And that's how that came through. There's another story that on the age of 12, she just hid on her dad's ship anyway. So he was going off to Spain and she just hid under the boards. And at that point it was too late. They were mid sea. And I, we've all done that, haven't we? We've hidden in the car boot or something around the back seat. Oh yeah, I used to hide on my dad's pirate ship all the time. All the time. As with many of us, she was married off really young and it was a politically arranged marriage. So she married Donald O. Farty who was a chief of another powerful family. So it was these two big families coming together, much like in our Champagne episode, there was like one chateau and another chateau and they wanted to come together. Once again, Game of Thrones seems to come up in this, but that sort of political maneuvering Those sort of settings, it's often about marrying the powerful families together. It's consistent, isn't it, throughout history? Yeah. She gave him three children, she had four in her lifetime, three were with him. But she hated staying at home while he was off at sea. That was like the traditional, she really wasn't a fan of that at all. But fun fact, her final child was called Tibet, he's important later on. He was actually born at sea, in a stage of her life when she was on the sea. The next day after his birth, Algerian pirates attacked their ship and upon hearing news, Grace put her baby down, one day old baby, less than a day old, and went and fought off the pirates. She was like, nah mate, not happening. Which one day postpartum, can't complain. That's very cool. Impressive. Yeah. Her husband, as with many of our stories, was killed in battle quite young. And this was around the early 1560s but Grace She was working the ships and she had this legacy with her father. She commanded such great loyalty among the men that actually they followed her when she wanted to move the headquarters to Clare Island and she actually succeeded her husband and began building up her own Mali empire. on the scene. So that idea of that rebellious streak and that leadership kind of vibe. Yeah. The second she got an opportunity, she took it and she was like, I'm going to. We've had a few now, haven't we? Where they marry into an already powerful Yes. Like their husband is powerful, their husband dies mysteriously. Mysteriously. And they, but they managed to then take over the power and she must have built up quite a reputation then and not have been, just the wife. Yeah. And also it took such a lot of skill. Let's not underestimate how difficult being a pirate on the west coast of Ireland was. It's a brutal sea, isn't it? It's a brutal sea. It's tough. It's dangerous. It's the Atlantic Ocean. You need knowledge of that sea. You need to know its tides. You need to know its currents. You need to know when the unpredictable weather might come. So in terms of seasons you need to be able to navigate by star and compass. There's no GPS or anything. And you needed, most importantly, you needed to know when it was safe to sail and to stay. So she was really good at that. Navigating the ocean in terms of that, in terms of when it's best to stay on land and when it's best to go in the sea. She respected the ocean, which is absolutely paramount for her life as a pirate. And I think it was that they saw and wanted to follow her. When she was leader of this clan, she went full on pirate. Her piracy took her as far as Spain. Interestingly, pirates can do things on land, which I didn't know. In Ireland, it was really interesting chieftains were not by How your power wasn't measured in terms of how many acres of land you had So it's not like I don't know if you've seen Yellowstone, but they're like as far as the valley what I have. Everyone's talking about Yellowstone at the moment. We've started it. It's quite a tough watch I'd say. Yeah It's not a cosy watch, it's quite a brutal watch, I think. Yeah, and I've heard that not much happens for a long time, and then suddenly something I say incredible, terrible, really dramatic happens, and then it's nothing for a while. Also, I'm pretty sure one of them is a serial killer and no one's saying it. They all know it. Just they're like, oh, he killed so and he killed so and he killed And no one's really giving it that label of, I think you're a serial killer. He's a character, isn't he? Yes, that's it. He's a cheeky little lad. It's not like he's a serial killer. Just a genuine serial killer. Much like Yellowstone, capital's really important. It was so important that Actually, it was how many cattle you had, rather than the acres that you had, what meant your power, which I didn't know. So therefore cattle raiding which is, as you would expect, the pirates want to get involved. They just want to get involved and steal the cattle So she would do her life on the ships and then when she was at home, she would just steal cows. It's crazy, isn't it? That's mad. I've never heard of a cow pirate before. A cow pirate? On the sea. So her ships are actually Viking ships. They would carry about 200 men they had a Latin or a triangular sail, which made them very nimble and a lot more easy to manoeuvre, which gave her a real good advantage. They were shallow and they were clinker built, which means that the boards that made the ships so they're wooden. And would be lengthways and they would overlap each other. It looks quite pretty when you look them up It's almost like petals like going up on the side and they were powered by 30 oars. So like proper viking style, you know Just about to ask about the oars. So they have to sail as well for a bit of maneuverability, but it was still It was manpower to get them shifting. Yeah, especially because they would sail really close to the shoreline They were a kind of ship that you could get really close Like I said, Grace is, she's got her hands in lots of pies. She also develops a new type of piracy. Beyond the cows, which is all. She starts charging people, so she implements a toll for taking safe passage across the sea. She maintained that they were looking to pass illegally through the waters. So she would control these waters and show who was allowed in and who was allowed out. If you were allowed in, you had to be charged a tax. That's because the sea that we're talking about is crazy. The sea that we're talking about is a busy route from traffic coming up through Spain to the busy port of Galway and onwards to Scotland. So it was like a rat run, for ships. And she fully capitalised on that. It's just amazing, isn't it, to think, I'm going to do this, and I just do it without, repercussions, and it's quite a serious undertaking. She's a pirate. It's illegal because I've just invented this law. That says it is, on whose authority? Mine. So the Amalis themselves, like I said, her dad had links with Spain, so they do have this long established trade relationship. With people in Spain and they imported iron different weapons, sometimes wine, and they exchanged them for things that the island couldn't allow them. So whether that be different types of skin, hide, leather, all that kind of stuff. Okay. By the end of this she became really wealthy because this is like an empire of what she's got going on. She's got, all these ships, she's got all these different business revenues, she's smashing it on the sea. So that's what Grace is up to. Wider context is England are expanding into Ireland. At first, they're not too bothered about Grace. They leave her to her own devices. But it's really important to note that Ireland in itself was becoming under much more control of the English. Lots of Irish chieftains were giving up their power to the English. And from when Grace was little all the way through, Ireland Had so many challenges in terms of social upheaval, political upheaval, lots of old Gaelic laws were swept away because the Tudors were trying to reconquest Ireland following, Norman times They were trying to get hold, back hold of Ireland. This ramps up. So in the 1570s, this idea of conquesting Ireland really takes hold because of Queen Elizabeth I. She fears that her enemies, who were King Philip II of Spain and Pope Pius V, would use Ireland as a backdoor to attack England. So this is like Spanish Armada, that kind of vibe. Yeah, it's interesting that the Pope is considered an enemy. Sounds like the Pope got far more involved back in those days. That happened in was it the Zenobia story? Suddenly the Pope just was like, in control of the conflict and it was like, to me, what? Who are you? So yes, Queen Elizabeth I is a bit nervous. What does Grace do? She double downs on being a pirate. She should go hard or go home. She became so pirate y, that she got complaints from the English. For example, she tried to one time to like compromise with the English because she could tell she was getting on the nerves and she offered 200 of her men to serve in the English army. But while she did that, she then went behind their backs and robbed their ships. The classic misdirection. This is not the It's I don't think you get it, yeah. Wow, these English are looking really annoyed at me. I know what'll help. I know, this'll help, yeah, for sure. Take their mind off it. Gall of it. That's incredible. You know earlier where I was like, oh, they didn't really take much notice of her. Now that now she's pissed them off. Understandably. Yeah. So what does she do? She aligns more closely with other Irish Lords who were planning the rebellion against the English. And at this time, like I said, she does have an empire. She has 20 ships over hundreds of men, 200, 300, 400 men. And she's well respected. She's fearless as a leader. And that is what she know is known as both on land and sea. And she's resilient. She's been doing this since she was 12. This is, she's very experienced An English Lord once referred to her as the nurse of all rebellions in this province for 40 years. That quote shows how popular she was in her homeland. Just a little example of How her reputation was cemented was that she visited Dublin one time and she wanted to visit Howth Castle and visit Lord Howth. However, when she got there, the family were like she was told by the footman, Oh no, we're actually there at dinner. We're going to close the castle gate. I'm sorry, He's busy. And then what she did was she abducted his grandson and heir, Christopher St. Lawrence. My laughter isn't advocating for kidnap, but it's like a retaliation, like, how dare you deny me entry to the castle. And then to release him, they promised that they would keep the gates open for unexpected visitors and they would set an extra place at every meal. In case she dropped by. Oh my god. They also gave her a ring as a pledge of the agreement, like to cement the agreement. That ring is still in possession of the O'Malley family today. Oh wow, the family's still around? Yeah, Do you have any idea how many cattle they have? No, I don't. We should go and find out. And then we should ploy, to steal them. Also just a Little side thing is that there's a Grace O'Malley road in health, which is like the honor the debacle that happened Yeah, you have to pay to go down it. I should think so. It only seems right Doesn't it? It's what she would have wanted So you have a healthy family or something like I said, the English influence is growing, and Grace is being quite brash about things. But actually, at one point, she does find herself at a disadvantage. We're now in the But she's 50, 60 years old at this she's, yeah, 50. That's a good point though, is that she lives a really long life. Really long. And that I think is if you're getting in this many fights, it's like testament to like, how good a fighter you were, and just how loyal the people around you must be. To protect you. Yeah, to protect you rather than take over. Or against you thing. Yeah, pirates are very good at democracy, to be fair. They are quite, they do have a many a system in there. There's this really cool book called Be More Pirate, which is I'd recommend. And it's, they, and we've spoken about it in the Ching Shih episode that equality was a thing that, she had them Amazonians around her and that she, advocated that. So I don't mind a bit of pirate society. Not dissuade. Balance it out, they've got kidnapping, beheading, but on balance. So the English really turn up the heat on Grace they appoint her. arched nemesis, he becomes Richard Bingham. He was appointed the English governor of Connaught, which is a province in western, northwest ish kind of island. And they got on at first, but then it really came to blows. His sole purpose of being appointed was to agro, because they knew how powerful she was. Yeah. So a lot, it's, it goes a bit back and forth, and I'll talk about that a little bit, but this Richard guy did not hold anything back. He knew that the Irish were feisty, and he wanted to be antagonistic, and he particularly felt in Grace's case that she had overstepped womanhood. She had gone out of her lane as a woman, so there's like that misogyny undertone. So Richard's brother tricked Owen, who is Grace's eldest son. And the idea is that Richard egged his brother on to take advantage of him. And It ended in a duel, and Obin was killed directly as a result from Richard egging him on, a little bit like Hamilton, where they're like, bad mouthing and then fights. So Richard lures Grace into his headquarters under the guise of a truce. Okay. They've been at blows, they've been at trade wars, they've been fighting, like I said, rebellions on the side. And when he lures her to his headquarters, he proclaims her a traitor and condemns her to death. She's then rescued by her own people. She really should have seen that coming. Yeah, I it did get a bit messy in the research, but it is, the tension between them is so strong, I can't underestimate that. And she might have been wanting to flip it around on him, you don't know. Yeah. The, I guess the point of this story is that she was seen as so important as a leader and so valued as a leader that her people came together and actually gave over hostages that they'd had to release her. Yeah, because they really value Grace's leadership. Bingham then retaliated again by confiscating all that cattle that she's built up and drove her off land and forcing her to live on the sea in the galley ship. So he takes over her land, which is not great. Grace flees to Ulster to consult with her allies who are also plotting against the British by uniting the Irish. So it's a common enemy here. I imagine a lot of Irish didn't love her for stealing their cattle and kidnapping their grandkids, but it's a bigger enemy, isn't it? That's a really good insight, actually. And you can tell it's this bigger piece because they need help from the King of Spain to drive the English out of Ireland. So much like Queen Elizabeth was fearing that happens in 1587. In 1588, the Spanish Armada is driven by the bad weather to its doom. Bingham is still avenging Grace. He's still mad at Grace. He takes terrible revenge on her and her relations, particularly for helping the Spanish. It all comes out. Grace then retaliates and then they declare an all out war. So her and Bingham become a proper war now. It's about how this has escalated, isn't it? It sounds like it started because the English were worried about A Spanish invasion through Ireland that wasn't happening and now they've united the Irish against them, united the Irish with the Spanish, created an actual war. They've just ended up causing way more actual problems than the hypothetical one that they didn't have in the first place. Yeah, it's every man out for himself, isn't it? It's very much that. In 1859, Bingham accused Grace of treason and starting rebellions against the English. Shock, horror. And then Sounds like a fair accusation. There was a little a side note there. It's the first time he reports her to Queen Elizabeth. It's oh, okay. Miss. So he's just been trying to handle this all on his own. Yeah, because that's his job. That's the whole reason he's been appointed. He's gonna be like, don't worry, I've got it. I'm gonna cause absolute havoc. The other thing that he does is he even tries to get Grace's family to Become allies with him. So they try to like double back this obviously makes Grace absolutely furious and intensifies her efforts against Bingham It's ridiculous and he's not really getting anywhere it's not until no 91 where he does the scorched earth tactic Which is just taking every little bit of resource possible off them, isn't it? It's like cutting off supplies, it's contraband, it's stealing their ship, it's every you fight them down where they can't even put up a fight anymore. They just nick all those resources. Okay up until now, Richard Bingham sounds a bit like Wile E. Coyote against the Roadrunner, just always failing in all of his things, and he's just instead kicking the whole place. Absolute analogy, brilliant. She then strikes back and seizes his ship. I love it. And then by 1952, Grace is getting a bit desperate because she's lost all her resources now. This is the point. I'm just imagining Richard going along with a massive pump. She's Aha! At last! Oh, for God's sake, she's got my ship. She's stolen the ship. Steve, you were meant to be watching the ship. So in desperation in 1592, Grace writes a letter to Queen Elizabeth the first, telling her that this guy's just being a bit of a prick here I don't think he's treating me very fairly. And she seeks redress. Then it intensifies. Oh, mate, it intensifies again. 1593. Richard arrests Grace's brother, and also her son, Theobald, for treason. And this is a crime that is punishable by death. So he actually does the arresting at this point. And then he imprisons them in Althrone Castle. In order to save her son's life, Grace takes voyage and embarks on this really treacherous journey to to London, which involves going round the south coast of Ireland and up through. Really dangerous, and she basically takes it on herself to be like, sod this, I'm going to Greenwich Palace I'm gonna go and see the Queen. Grace at this point is 63. It's absolutely amazing. The biographer Ann Chambers says that her motivation was just being a mother. She's just trying to save the life of her child. As you can imagine, trying to get an audience Queen Elizabeth I is not easy. That's not a just thing where you call up and make an appointment, right? So Grace had to, when she got there, she had to use all her political skills and savviness and navigate the Tudor court. To allow herself in and there's even proof of this in English state papers, which is really cool. So what she was trying to do in those conversations that she had, she even wrote a petition to the Queen to answer a series of questions, so you can't just walk in. But it also shows how savvy she was politically and how she knew what, she was happy to follow procedure to do that. And she must have been to have lasted this long. I don't think you can last this long in such a, like a role with such jeopardy associated with it without knowing how to play both enforcer and like political maneuvering, all of that. You've gotta be the whole package, aren't you? Yeah, and I think she sees herself on the same standing as Queenland first. She doesn't see her as any different. She sees them as peers, which I really like. There is a story that she refused to bow to the Queen, which is absolute sacrilege in Britain. You cannot do that. And there was also a story that she'd brought a dagger to, for, what would you call it, self defense, which to me is not that far fetched. If you're a pirate, there's probably going to be a dagger on your person. But there is some like folklore that this was made the whole meeting go awry and that Queen Elizabeth was absolutely outraged that a knife or a dagger managed to get into her court and Actually, in reality, it probably isn't that big a deal. It was probably the issue that the guards were more upset than Queen Elizabeth. That's the vibe I'm getting from the biography. But it does show that there would have been a clash of cultures in this meeting. So you've got, very different upbringings, you've got very different, these women both think they're top of their game and, it's a huge clash, Ireland and British English culture. Another example of this is that Grace, I don't really know, she was offered a handkerchief by a lady and waiting to blow her nose. And then in Ireland, it's because to blow your nose and throw it in the fire. That was customary at the time. It was dirty. You wanted to get rid of disease, but in the English court, apparently that caused uproar. it's, oh, you can just imagine the Daily Mail headlines. Blame head pirate. Disrespects lady and lady. Yeah, absolutely. But that doesn't mean the meeting didn't go well. It went really well from Grace's point of view. She managed to secure the release of her family members. So both her brother and her son. She even got a promise from the Queen to have a different person, an English Lord, step down from his position. And, Bingham's out. Yeah, I think it was Bingham, but it took a long time. She also managed to get her land returned to her that Bingham had stolen in this meeting. And she got commitment that she was allowed to continue her career at sea. So that's what she negotiated. She got everything in support of no longer supporting the Irish Rebellion. That's what she gave back. Oh, okay. So Queen Elizabeth was happy to give all this in exchange for that. That's really the only thing she could offer, isn't it? What else do you offer a queen? For sure, but she got all of that. All of that back, which reminded me so much of Ching Shih and her negotiations at the end of her life. Do you remember? When they were She even got a pension, didn't she? And the release of all of her men. Yeah. And she got to keep all the treasure. Yeah, these women know, they know how to negotiate, they know very much the ins and outs of it. It's remarkable. The reason it took so long for Bingham to be recalled was because he actually disagreed with Queen Elizabeth I's decision and therefore didn't do it. That's classic Bingham, absolutely classic Bingham. He just didn't want bothered mate, couldn't be bothered with that. And I think one of the reasons that went so awry was because obviously Grace went back to Ireland. He's still in Ireland, so she was relaying the message to him. So I guess there's maybe a trust issue there. Yeah, understandably. Eventually though Bingham is recalled to English court and Grace carries on pirating through her battles all the way to the end of her life there are a lot more that she gets involved in and a lot more battles, but in 1603, Grace eventually dies of natural causes at Rock Street. 73 years old. It's a lot, isn't it? That's amazing for, yeah, for that era. I love it. She yeah. Not advocating for piracy. But, again, sounds like she did it spectacularly well. There's a really lovely quote from the book that says Grace, that was, she was quote, an accomplished marina, fearless leader, shrewd political tactician, independent businesswoman, ruthless plunderer, mercenary, rebel, and a woman who refused to allow any barrier obstruct her quest. She commanded loyalty because she was braver than most And I do that sort of belligerent attitude rather than of looking at the rules and seeing what you can do within them saying Those rules are stupid. Here's what I'm going to do. And just she really made things happen. She's very effective by the sounds of it. Yeah. And she's absolutely adored in Irish culture, much like she was in her heyday. There's a a statue in Westport House in County Mayo. And it's a very cool statue. I think it's a bronze one. And she's got a head up, she's got her hand on her sword, it's very cool. And like I said, she's got such a legacy in Ireland, and she's had loads of different impacts in culture. She's inspired lots of literature and, They do celebrate her a lot in Ireland. I always think that she should be I really like the idea that we should have women patron saints. You have St. Patrick's Day. I'd love the idea of a St. Grace's Day. Grace's Day. Yeah. Yeah. We should have one for each country. We just go out and ride a cow. Yeah, let's just do it. And then everyone dresses up as a pirate. So yeah, that's the story of Grace O'Malley. Grace's One of those in particular, I would love to see how she'd have got on if she were born in this era. What that attitude, where that would have got her, where piracy is pretty rare in these parts these days, but how would that attitude and that sort of belligerence and determination combined with her political manoeuvring, her skill as a businesswoman. Which is very Yellowstone, you haven't seen Yellowstone. These are themes that come across Yellowstone quite a bit. So maybe it's not that different. I don't know. thank you, Vicky. I enjoyed that enormously. Yay! It was funny. It was a good one. It's funny. She's just straight up badass. I love it. Yeah. And just the idea that you can do it. Yeah, of course I can do that. Of course, yeah, of course, yeah.

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