Sunday Mirror
(UK)16 March 2003
Amazing Grace
THE adventures of 16th century Pirate Sea Queen Grace O'Malley are to feature in a special TV series exploring history's most fearless female warriors.Born around 1530 she ruled Clew Bay, Co. Mayo with an iron fist from her castle on Clare Island.
The O'Malleys had been known for their sailing prowess since 1123 and traded regularly with Scotland and Spain in their galleys and three-masted caravels.
The series, Warrior Women, to be broadcast this autumn, will be presented by Xena: Warrior Princess actress, New Zealand-born Lucy Lawless.
Filmed in Ireland, France, China, USA and Britain, the weekly one- hour series on Discovery Networks Europe will also feature Joan of Arc; Boudica, Queen of the Iceni Tribe; Chinese heroine Hua Mulan and Apache warrior Lozen.
The Grace O'Malley segment will be based on Anne Chambers' best-selling biography Granuaille: The Life and Times of Grace O'Malley.
London-based October Films has appointed Anne Chambers, from Castlebar, Co. Mayo, as its Irish consultant.
This part of the series will be filmed on Clew Bay, Clare Island, Westport, Galway and Dublin later this month.
"I am really thrilled that the Grace O'Malley story is to get the wider audience it deserves," says Ms. Chambers.
"She was a remarkable woman and even among the pantheon of famous women warriors included in this series, she more than holds her own" .
Discovery Channel director Kathy Thorogood added: "Warrior Women promises to be a spirited and action-packed series for Discovery that brings to life each of the protagonists with a mix of historical investigation and dramatic reconstruction."
Anne Chambers added: "This may be the impetus to get a movie on Granuaille off the ground. Some interest has been shown and this may kick-start it again."
The story of Granuaille reads like the most brazen and unlikely sort of adventure fiction, but there's history as well as myth in the legend of the Irish noblewoman who led a band of 200 sea-raiders.
Twice widowed, twice imprisoned, fighting her enemies both Irish and English for her rights, condemned for piracy, and finally pardoned in London by Queen Elizabeth herself, Grace was one of the few sea- raiders to retire from the sea and die in her ownbed, though where she's buried remains a mystery.
Queen Elizabeth I tried to convince Grainne to stop harassing her fleet.
She supposedly invited her to the English court and gave her a lapdog and embroidered gifts - to no avail.
Grainne returned to Ireland and kidnapped an Englishman who lived in Howth Castle in Dublin, thus establishing her independence.
She was known as a bold leader of many sea expeditions - was captured, held in Dublin in 1577, arrested on a charge of plunder in 1586, and released on her son-in-law's surety. She died in poverty.
TOM GILLESPIE, Amazing Grace. , Sunday Mirror, 03-16-2003, pp 31.
Source: ELibrary Subscription Service