Pirate Queen (6 page)

‘You only married me to get your hands on Rockfleet
Castle
!’ Richard shouts during one of their frequent rows.

Granuaile laughs. ‘You forget that I have strongholds all around Clew Bay, and even a castle in Iar Connacht which I won for myself with a sword in my hand. I would hardly have married you for another set of walls and a roof.’

‘Then why did you?’

She shrugs. ‘I no longer remember. Because both our families wanted it, I suppose.’ She is genuinely fond of Richard Bourke, a handsome man with dark auburn hair and bright blue eyes, but she will never admit this. He is certainly a more satisfactory husband than her first one was. But Richard now lives elsewhere and visits only at her invitation.

Richard tolerates the situation because Granuaile is a valuable asset. A wealthy wife is highly prized by the Anglo-Normans. Granuaile even has the ability to increase her wealth through her own actions. Unfortunately she is a difficult woman. Her gunpowder temper can explode in his
face when he least expects it. If he makes her angry enough, she will hit him with her fists like a man. He
suspects
she might even attack him with a sword.

People whisper that Granuaile is a better man than Richard Bourke. This should make him angry, but he is secretly proud. Who else has such a wife?

On one of his visits to Rockfleet, Richard sees her practising with an Italian wheel-lock pistol she has acquired on one of her voyages. Granuaile has set up a row of targets beyond the kitchens – bundles of straw tied together in a manlike shape. Taking the heavy pistol in both hands, she braces herself. She squints her eyes, bites her lip, holds her breath and fires. Her aim is deadly.

She looks up and sees Richard watching. ‘Can you shoot as well as this?’ she asks.

‘I could if I wanted.’

‘Show me.’ She hands him the pistol. He struggles with the mechanism. At first it will not fire, then suddenly it bucks violently in his hand. The shot goes wild.

‘No wonder the English defeated you in Iar
Connacht
,’ Granuaile drawls.

At that moment Richard hates her. But not enough to turn his back and walk away.

At Christmas, 1573, Tibbott, now six years old, is
summoned
to Rockfleet.

Granuaile and Richard always invite the Bourkes of Carra to celebrate the feast of Christ’s birth at Rockfleet.
The guests will gobble down a small herd of cattle and an astonishing number of honey cakes. Granuaile provides many casks of wine and brandy for them as well. ‘If we are lucky,’ she remarks to Richard, ‘they will not burn down the banqueting hall again this year.’

Before the feast begins, she slips away to take a boat across the bay to her father’s stronghold at Belclare. Toby is being raised by Anglo-Normans, but she wants him to remember what it means to be Irish.

The boy sits quietly in the boat, watching his mother with large eyes. She is almost like a creature of legend to him. Being with her is very exciting and a little frightening.

At Belclare, preparations for the feast of Christmas begin with special prayers on the first day of Advent. They are conducted in the family chapel by the Abbot of Murrisk, who inherited the office from his father.
Meanwhile
there has been a mighty cleaning and sweeping of the castle. A stone fort, Belclare was built for protection rather than show, but in this season it is beautiful.
Garlands
and swags of greenery decorate the walls. Above the main doorway is a timber cross covered with holly sprigs. The collecting of ivy and holly is the special duty of the children of the household. Granuaile urges Toby to take part. At first he is shy, but soon he is whooping and
laughing
with his cousins.

At sunset on Christmas Eve the family visits nearby Murrisk Abbey. Hundreds of candles are lit to hold the night at bay while they await the anniversary of the Christ child’s birth. Next morning they attend a private Mass in the family
chapel, and then return to the abbey for a second Mass with as many of their clan as can crowd inside.

Afterwards Granuaile introduces Toby to everyone. ‘Tibbott of the Long Ships,’ she says. ‘
My
son.’

They fast until dinner, when the women ‘bring in the Christmas’. Cod and ling and sea trout and pickled
herring
, oysters and scallops and crab and lobster. Eels boiled in milk and dullisk baked into a pudding, with honey and dried berries. Barnacle goose and roast venison are great favourites. The finest wines and brandies are poured out for the aging Black Oak and his kinsmen.

‘I imported those,’ Granuaile reminds them with a smile. She feels that she must stamp her mark on
everything
: her son, her imports, her castles. Mine.

After the feast Granuaile’s half-brother, Donal, sounds the pipes to announce that the entertainments are about to begin. At an Irish Christmas, solemn prayer and joyous song go hand in hand. Both are pleasing in the sight of God. Toby falls asleep very late indeed.

A week later, as they return across the bay to
Rockfleet
, Granuaile signals to the boatmen to rest their oars. She stands in the currach, looking back toward Belclare. A wind is rising; the New Year will start with a storm. She does not notice the weather. Her heart is still with her family, with her father.

In her memory Dubhdara has always been huge and strong, but this Christmas he is smaller than she is. His face is caving in upon itself. Her mother is shrinking too; shrinking away.

‘Shrinking,’ Granuaile murmurs to herself. She
dislikes
the word. It reminds her that the English are taking great bites out of Ireland. Shrinking the Gaelic world.

A shudder runs through the tall woman, despite her heavy woollen cloak. Her son notices and reaches out a hand to her. She takes it, flicks him a smile, and sits down beside him. At her signal the boatmen resume rowing. The currach skims across the water toward Rockfleet.

But her eyes keep turning back to Belclare.

In 1574 Rockfleet proves its worth.

Five years earlier the English she-king had appointed a man called Sir Edward Fitton to be governor of
Connacht
. The title gives him great authority in the territory.

The merchants of Galway have been complaining to Fitton about Granuaile. They claim that by attacking ships destined for their port she is destroying their
livelihood
. In March of 1574, Fitton sends several ships loaded with men-at-arms to Clew Bay. Granuaile’s own vessels have not yet put to sea. The English sail boldly into the inlet at the foot of Rockfleet. By laying siege to the pirate queen’s stronghold, they intend to force her to surrender. Then they can kill her and put an end to her raiding.

Thanks to the view from the ramparts, Granuaile is aware of them long before they arrive. This gives her time to prepare her defences.

She always has men garrisoned at Rockfleet. At her order they bring enough barrels of fresh water into the tower to supply the occupants for many weeks. There are
adequate stores of food already. Granuaile posts armed men on the ramparts and at every loophole. Then she arms herself with her favourite Italian pistol and waits for the invaders.

The inlet below Rockfleet is shallow. An Irish
currach
or galley can come right up to the foot of the castle, but English ships have a deeper draft. They have to stand off and fire from a distance. They soon learn how futile this is. Blunderbuss and matchlock are useless against the stone tower. If they had brought warships capable of
carrying
cannon they might have done damage, but such large ships cannot make their way among the many islands of Clew Bay.

While the English are besieging Rockfleet, Granuaile’s men on Clare Island take to their galleys and come in behind them. The English find themselves trapped. After a frantic skirmish, they weigh anchor. Instead of killing Granuaile, they barely escape with their own lives.

She stands on the ramparts of Rockfleet, shading her eyes with her hand. In the far distance she can just make out the English ships. They are still running like hares before the hounds.

A faint smile touches her lips. Expands. Becomes a grin. Becomes a laugh, a great, belly-shaking guffaw that rings out across Clew Bay. Still laughing, Granuaile raises her arm and shakes her fist at the English as they
disappear
over the horizon.

‘Go back where you came from!’ she shouts after them. ‘This land is ours!’

Elizabeth Tudor’s father, King Henry VIII, had been a Catholic. He had wanted to divorce his wife but the Catholic Church did not permit divorce. The king had tried to persuade the pope to make an exception for him. When the pope refused, Henry had turned his back on his Church.

Meanwhile Protestantism was gaining favour in Europe. It denied the authority of the pope and accepted the Bible as the only word of God. This concept exactly suited Henry Tudor’s purpose. He founded his own
Protestant
church, which allowed him to divorce.

King Henry’s daughter Elizabeth was raised in the new faith. Now that she is queen, she has proclaimed
herself
head of the Church of England. The Protestant religion is to be ‘the established faith’. The crosses and candles of Catholicism are being stripped from the altars. Churches are being closed all over Britain and Ireland. The worship of the Virgin Mary is to be replaced by the authority of the Virgin Queen.

Granuaile does not care what religion foreign monarchs follow. That is their business. But to deny Ireland its Catholic faith is monstrous. Even the Anglo-Normans are unhappy. There are rumours of rebellion.

With the closure of Murrisk Abbey, a stone settles in the heart of Granuaile.

In May of 1574, Granuaile returns to sea.

Her father makes her promise to avoid Galway, and she agrees. ‘But I cannot avoid all of Iar Connacht,’ she tells him. ‘You understand that I have responsibilities there.’

The old man bows his head. ‘If there is anything in my life I repent, it is the fact that I urged you to marry Donal O’Flaherty.’

‘That was as much my mother’s fault as yours. When I was sixteen, an age when most women are already wed, I was still as wild as a leaping dolphin. Mother despaired of me. She kept urging you to arrange a suitable match for me and at last you suggested
Donal-an-Chogaidh
, Donal of the Battles. You thought he would make a fine husband because he was tanaiste of Clan O’Flaherty, from Iar
Connacht
to the south.’

‘I knew nothing of him personally,’ Dubhdara
hastens
to say. ‘The clan had a fearsome reputation but we had never had trouble with them.’

‘That may have been because a range of mountains separated us from them,’ Granuaile replies. ‘When Donal first came to Clare Island I was not very impressed. He was a sour little man who strutted like a cockerel and had bad teeth. But he assured you that he would provide well for me, and he swore that our clans would be allies forever. The last part is true at least. That is why I must go back to Iar Connacht from time to time.’

Granuaile often thought of Iar Connacht and the years when she had lived there as a member of Clan O’Flaherty. They were not happy memories, but they had made her the woman she was. Fire tempers steel.

After their marriage Donal had taken Granuaile to live in Bunowen Castle, beside a narrow tidal inlet that provides access to a fine bay and the sea beyond. On the day she
arrived
she noticed a number of boats pulled up on the shore. They looked badly neglected. She walked down to the water’s edge and stared at them. They were rotting like the seaweed on the strand.

It seemed a terrible waste, but Donal had refused to explain. He bristled like a pig and acted as if his new wife had no right to question him. Being Granuaile, she did not accept this. She went privately to talk with the cottagers who lived around Bunowen, and learned the truth soon enough.

For centuries the O’Flaherties had used the sea as much as the O’Malleys did. Sailing out of Galway,
Connacht’s
most important seaport, Donal’s people had travelled up and down the west coast of Ireland. They did some fishing, but their main source of income was the plunder they took by raiding. They kept the best and traded the rest in Galway’s markets.

The New English had arrived in southwestern Iar Connacht a generation earlier. Helped by the
Anglo-Norman
merchants in Galway, they had set themselves up in the city and barred the gates against the native Irish. The ferocious O’Flaherties were no longer welcome in Galway town.

At first Clan O’Flaherty had fought back, but the
foreigners
guarded the port with warships and cannon. After a time the O’Flaherties gave up. A strong leader could have put heart in them, but the chief of the clan, known as The O’Flaherty, was not a young man. His chosen successor, Granuaile’s new husband, was not a strong leader. Donal preferred to sulk. He blamed everyone but himself for his troubles. He never kept allies for long and had no friends.

Donal’s holdings included two fortresses, one at Bunowen and the other at Ballinahinch. Granuaile was expected to supervise the servants and supplies for both castles. When she investigated their stores, she was shocked to discover how poor her new family was. No gold, no silk, no glassware. Linen sheets for the beds but they were ragged. On Clew Bay, Granuaile’s people wanted for nothing. Donal’s people buttered their bread with want.

Since they no longer took to the sea, they were forced to live off the corn they raised, and their sheep and cattle. Iar Connacht was a rugged land and corn and cattle did not always thrive. Sheep fared better. Irish wool was prized abroad. Unfortunately the English had banned the export of fleeces from Galway.

So, in spite of the glowing claims Donal had made to Dubhdara, the O’Flaherties were no longer prosperous. That did not stop Donal from acting like the high king of Ireland. He swanned around, boasting of past glories and provoking quarrels with his neighbours, while Granuaile pared the cheese ever thinner and added more water to the wine. The soles of her leather shoes wore so thin she threw them away and began walking barefoot again, as she had in childhood.

At first she tried to be a good wife by modelling
herself
on her mother. Dubhdara was a kind man who provided well and did not mistreat his wife. But Granuaile’s experience with Donal was very different. He was often insulting and always mean. He did not
physically
abuse her, though. Not after the first time he had tried. When he had doubled up his fist to hit her, she had hit him first and knocked him down.

Granuaile bore Donal O’Flaherty three children: Owen, Murrough, and Margaret. Even three babies were not enough to exhaust her energy. She cast longing eyes toward the sea, remembering the days when she was free and life seemed boundless.

After Margaret was born, Granuaile grew sick of
eating boiled mutton. Although she could not see them, she sensed vast schools of fish in the bay. Even when she was indoors she could tell whether the tide was rising, whether the herring were running, and which way the wind blew.

As part of her dowry she had brought a fine currach. She appointed four of Donal’s men to row and took her boat out. They glimpsed English warships on the far
horizon
but Granuaile refused to be frightened. She stood upright in the prow and held her arms wide. ‘How
splendid
it is to be on the water again, gliding along like a seahorse!’ she exclaimed.

When they returned at sundown, the boat was laden to the gunwales with silvery fish. The people on the shore observed the catch with envy. Granuaile divided most of the fish among them. Shyly, they asked if she would help revive their neglected fleet.

‘I did more than help,’ she wrote to her father some months later. ‘Within a short time I have taken charge. I can see what needs to be done; I know how to make
decisions
. From you I learned to give men encouragement rather than harsh words.’

Before Donal knew what was happening, his
followers
were deserting him for Granuaile. Under her command, they began building new galleys and sailing around the coast. Granuaile traded O’Flaherty fish for luxury goods. These were in great demand but in short supply around the west of Ireland. The English were demanding high tolls for any cargo brought into Galway.
By avoiding Galway altogether, Granuaile could sell imported merchandise elsewhere for lower prices.

Great lords and clan chieftains bought everything she had to sell. In southern waters she obtained an ostrich egg fitted with a silver spout so that it could be used as a
drinking
beaker. Granuaile had never heard of an ostrich. Neither had the Anglo-Norman nobleman who bought it from her, but he gave her a purse full of gold for the pretty bauble.

For the first time in years, the O’Flaherties greased their knives with fat. Women blessed Granuaile’s name and children ran to hug her knees.

Instead of being grateful, her husband was jealous of her achievement. When she tried to explain that he had thrown away his opportunities, he would not listen. He accused Granuaile of treachery.

Yet she never abandoned Donal’s people. She never would.