The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (24 page)

“Please go on. Finish your story.”

Grace returned to her chair but sat leaning forward, forearms on her knees. Her words were calmly spoken, but beneath they simmered with outrage.

THE LOCAL CHIEFTAINS were all so tired of fighting their petty fights that they wearily signed your “Composition of Connaught.” They were told ’twas merely a survey of the province, a means to fairly levy taxes on the people, and give them relief from the
cess
—the quartering of English troops on their lands at their expense. Jesus only knows if the chieftains meant to observe the indentures they’d signed, but it proved to be their ruination, pure and simple. It opened the door for the Crown’s colonists and soldiers to steal what was ours, had been ours for a thousand years.

Worse, by signin’ the Composition, the chiefs relinquished once and forever the old ways and the Brehon law—all that made them a Gaelic people. When Irish
tanaistry
was forfeited for English inheritance law, everything changed. No longer ruler to the wider clan, a chieftain ruled only his immediate
sept
. The reward, they were told, for adhering to primogeniture was that their sons—unquestioned—would inherit their titles and estates. No more fighting for election to chieftaincy. No more murdering of male kin in striving for the title. Of course this looked favorable, especially to the minor chiefs—of which there were many—

for now without an overlord, they thought themselves very great indeed, and their sons were assured of their titles after them.

But it only looked good for a while. Foreigners laid claim to Irish family lands, and were granted them under the new laws. Properties owned by clans for endless generations were lost. And the few chiefs who’d not signed were all of a sudden at war with the ones who had.

Nothing was sacred. Betrayal became a way of life. The English put an actual price on the Irish rebels—“head money” it was called. Informers informed on their families and friends. Men arrived at the English garrisons carrying over their shoulders sackfuls of their brothers’ heads.

Village, field, and forest were put to the torch. Cattle died by the thousands. Famine was widespread, and weakened bodies succumbed to plague. And marching over the ruined landscape were English soldiers, brutalizing us all. The bloodshed was terrible, but it paled before the unraveling of the ancient Irish tapestry. Aye, that was the worst of it.

The man you sent into our midst to enforce the blasted Composition was Richard Bingham. He loathed the Irish. “If Hell were opened,” he was heard to say, “and all the evil spirits roamed abroad, they would never be worse than these Connaught rogues—rather,
dogs,
and worse than dogs. For the Irish race is degenerate and debases all humanity.” Melaughlin, The O’Malley, signed the Composition, and so did most of the Connaught chieftains. But I did not sign, nor did my sons Owen and Murrough, and in this resistance—fighting for
tanaistry
and the old ways—were sown the seeds of our own misfortune and death.

Do you know why Bingham hated me so? ’Twas on two accounts, really. Number one—in our first encounter I defeated him. And number two—I witnessed his utter humiliation. Richard Bingham would have you believe I was an abomination of womanhood. That God, who rarely erred, had done so in creatin’ me. Realizing his mistake the Lord had cast me down, and I’d been rescued by Satan himself, and whosoever destroyed me was in service to God Almighty.

I’ll tell you the story of Bingham’s defeat at Castle Hag at the hands of Grace O’Malley’s rebels, for no one else will—certainly not him.

’Twas a rout pure and simple. We shredded his English troops like a lion’s claw through China silk.

What you know as the Burkes’ Rebellion first came to a head over that blighted title—the MacWilliamship—like the bursting open of a poisonous boil. When my Richard died, old Edmund Burke—eighty years if he was a day—decided his time had finally come. He was
tanaist
for the Burke clan’s chieftaincy, and no English bastard could tell him otherwise.

Richard Bingham had been busy. He ’d held his first “session” for the carrying out of the Composition of Connaught at the Castle Dona-mona. All the chief families of the province had been called, and those who had signed came to do business with their new English overlord.

Little did they know that by day’s end seventy of ’em would be in Mayo swinging from the end of a rope.

I suppose they thought, bein’ chieftains and all, that they’d be fined and maybe flogged for their “offenses” against the Crown. But they were gathered in a line, two abreast, and marched from the great hall outside to the inner courtyard. Much to their surprise gallows had been built.

Seventy in all. The men were hung with no fanfare, and those who’d been spared were turned out of Donamona like common beggars, the castle doors bolted behind them.

So that was how ’twas to be. Some chiefs folded, relinquished their power and dignity. Others, like Edmund Burke, at eighty with nothin’ to lose, fought back. Edmund’s wife was Morag, a tough old bird who’d decided they’d waited long enough for the highest Burke title. Bingham had named Richard Oliverus to the MacWilliamship, but by the old laws Edmund was
tanaist
, and he would have it or he would die trying.

In defiance he raided Richard Oliverus’s lands and stole his cattle.

Bingham objected—these were the queen’s herds now, and Edmund’s resistance must be met with force. The old man and his wife, gathering their most faithful around them, fortified Castle Hag, which stood on an island in Lough Mask, and took refuge in it. They sent their fastest messengers north and waited for help to arrive. The only one who made it before the English attacked was Devil’s Hook and his fiercest fighting men. I was away in Galway trading and only heard of the siege at Lough Mask a week later.

I had listened in horror to the stories from Donamona. Nothing could stop the destruction I knew was the future of Ireland, but I could fight all the same. How could you wake and face yourself each morning if you didn’t at least try?

I went to my son Owen and told him that. Edmund Burke was his wife ’s own father, but he would not fight. He chose peace instead. Said

’twas Jesus’ way, to love his enemy no matter what. What can you say to that? Of course Murrough was deaf to my call, but all the same I’d gathered a mighty force without my boys, and we moved like silent wolves across familiar bogs and glens toward the shores of Lough Mask. We were less than a day away when one of my roving spies came runnin’ to me. He ’d been abroad in the pasturelands to the east of Lough Mask and told of a great column of English reinforcements marching toward the lake. We hurried our pace, now with no time to lose.

Castle Hag stood proud in the center of the island. We could hear the pop, pop, pop of gunfire from the battlements and towers. And there with his troops in fifty boats, halfway out to the castle, was Captain Richard Bingham—I’d not yet met the man—but I heard him shouting his shrill orders over the placid water.

By stealth we overcame the troops he ’d left behind and captured the shoreside camp. Unlike other English troops Bingham’s men were clothed in uniforms, a pretty robin’s-egg blue. Some of my men donned the ones pulled from the bodies of the dead, and we made a great performance of manning the cannon as Crown soldiers. No one in the boats on the lake was any the wiser. With great care I took a small patrol—two carts filled with arms and other supplies—and made my way round to the mooring on the south coast of Lough Mask, down behind the castle.

’Twas altogether unguarded by the English—they’d not known it was there. I filled the two dinghies I found at the dock with the stolen ordnance, and rowed to the backside of Castle Hag.

We were greeted with the greatest joy and relief by Edmund and Morag and my son-in-law, Hook, and I quickly told them my plan. We ’d have to move fast, escape the island altogether, for help from the northern clans would not arrive in time, and English reinforcements were close at hand. I had carried in a pile of English uniforms and everyone donned them.

Night was fallin’ and Bingham’s attack by boat was finished for the day. We heard his orders called, and watched as his flotilla retreated back toward the shore. Little did they know that manning their guns were Irish rebels, and as the first cannon roared out across the water at them, they fell back in horror and confusion. We in the castle moved fast. We took to our boats and rowed out
behind
the English, peppering them with fire from the rear. We watched as a ball struck a boat, punching a huge hole in her. She sank at once, dunking in the lake her squadron of men.

Few had been taught to swim and now, aside from the booming cannon and the high whine of small artillery, came shrieks of anguish, men pleadin’ to be saved from a watery death.

But Bingham had no mind to rescue his drowning men, absorbed as he was in the frontal assault. I caught sight of Captain Bingham in the lightning of an explosion. He had the pinched face of a weasel and his beard was cut too neatly for a man. His eyes were wild with fear, for in that moment he knew that his enemy was not just onshore but there on the water in boats, in Crown uniforms, picking them off like sitting ducks. He shouted frantic like, and though ’twas in English, which I had not yet learned, I knew he was crying a warning to his men. But it was too late. Hook, in his boat, was an excellent shot and one after another, English soldiers toppled from the dinghies into the lake.

And then with a great roar a cannonball ripped through the side of Bingham’s boat, takin’ the leg clean off a soldier. It mightn’t have sunk the boat, but the men, in a panic, all scrambled to the other side and it capsized. There was Bingham in the drink, hangin’ for dear life onto his boat, screeching in terror to be saved. “I’m Captain Bingham!” he cried,

“Captain Bingham!” over and over again. We rowed as close as we could to shoot more of them, and I was taking aim at Bingham himself when the sky was again lit by cannon fire, and somebody called my name.

I saw him turn at the sound, and in the quickly fading light he caught his first glimpse of the infamous Grace O’Malley. Pirate. Rebel.

Now dressed in an English coat, dry and dignified while he flailed about in the cold water of Lough Mask, dodging bullets and beggin’ his men to save him. In that moment I became his enemy. No, more than that. I became the symbol of all he hated and feared. In our first battle in full sight of his troops, I got the best of Richard Bingham. He would never live that down. Then he ducked behind his boat and I lost my shot.

I knew in my heart of hearts that he would come after me. He ’d been publicly shamed by a woman, and that he could not countenance. But I never fathomed the true depth of the hatred—that he ’d vowed to destroy me entirely. Take everything of value from my life. Killing me was too easy for Bingham, for I’d not suffered sufficiently. In the end I’d be forced to watch as he ripped apart my family, with each child ’s fate a different torture.

I’d returned to Rockfleet, for I’d never felt more secure than in that keep, my ships afloat in that harbor. One day my scout came to me with news—a huge company of English soldiers was marchin’ in from the east with a herd of cattle in tow, no doubt raided from my lands. And from what he could see, they held fifteen prisoners as well.

I knew ’twas Bingham, but what was he up to? Certainly not battle, accompanied as he was by all that cattle. I shook out my long braid so my graying hair resembled a wild mane, wrapped my chieftain’s cloak around me, and went out to meet him. Even mounted on his horse I could see he was a tiny bit of a man. There were no deformities, but he was certainly shorter than myself. I remember groaning inside at the sight of him, for the smaller the man, the more dangerous. They had somethin’ to prove to the world, these wee fellows, and a grudge against their Maker for their paltry proportions. It could only add to my grief.

His troops stood at attention behind him, his interpreter beside him.

“I see you didn’t drown after all,” I said, and watched Bingham’s face grow red. His thighs squeezed the sides of his horse and I saw that he ’d not be gettin’ down if he could help it.

“Grace O’Malley,” he began in a formal voice, too high and shrill for a man.

“That’s me,” I said. “What have you come for, and are those my cows?”

“
I
will ask the questions here,” he fairly spat, but then fell silent and confused, as though that was not what he ’d meant to say. The man was simmering like a thick stew, and I wished to provoke him further.

“I understand you have prisoners,” I said. “Who are they?” When the interpreter repeated my query, Richard Bingham finally smiled. His teeth were small and straight and white, but their perfection made him look all the more peevish. With a tiny wave of his hand, the English ranks opened and the prisoners were brought through. ’Twas then that my heart sank, and I knew the trouble that lay ahead.

They were all Burkes, greater and lesser chiefs, and they’d all been beaten. They were filthy with blood and vomit caked in their hair and what ragged clothing they wore. Four soldiers carried a litter and dropped it at my feet. Stretched out upon it was a pitiful creature. Old Edmund Burke had been tortured horribly. Both legs were broken, the bone of his right shin piercing the skin. His bare feet were charred black, and they’d branded his chest and arms with an iron. Most of his teeth were gone from his mouth and his eyes were swollen shut.

“Edmund,” I said, never expectin’ a reply.

But the old codger’s lips moved and he said, “Who is it then?”

“It’s Grace,” I answered.

“They . . . they . . .” I leaned down to hear him better. “They forced Morag,” he whispered. “A dozen of ’em, right in front of my eyes. They would have killed her, but she died of shame before they could.” I glared up at Bingham on his horse. He wore a smug smile and I wished to slap it from his weasel face. “Why have you done this?” I said, and waved my arm toward the Burke prisoners. “Why have you brought them here?”