She was married twice, divorced once, took a lover when she wanted, and gave birth to one of her sons on the deck of her own ship. She was Grace O'Malley, the sixteenth-century Irish woman who provoked awe, anger, admiration, and fear in the English men who, by persuasion and by the sword, came to conquer the land of her birth.
Born in 1530, the daughter of an Irish chieftain, she inherited her father's taste for the seafaring life and eventually took command of his fleet of galleys and their hard-bitten, all-male crews. For fifty years she traded the clan's produce in Ireland, Scotland, and Spain, skillfully practiced the time-honored craft of piracy and plundering, and led rebellions against the invading English.
On land and sea she was a fearless leader, a political pragmatist, a ruthless mercenary, and a shrewd negotiator -- as shown in her fabled meeting with her rival and protector, Queen Elizabeth. And yet, as thrilling and fascinating as her life story is, what happened to her after her life is equally instructive.