13. The Dark Lady of Doona
In 1546, Grace O’Malley was married. She bore three children, before her husband was killed in an ambush in 1565. Because of the era’s sexist laws, she was unable to inherit her husband’s property. So she became a pirate, settling in Clare Island and making it her stronghold and base of operations. She began her piratical career with three galleys and a number of smaller boats, using them to prey on shipping and raid coastal targets.
While seething over the laws that deprived her of her husband’s property, and building up her pirate fleet, Grace consoled herself by taking as a lover a shipwrecked sailor. When her lover was killed by a rival family, the MacMahons, history got its first glimpse of Grace O’Malley’s ferocity. To avenge her lover, she attacked Doona castle, where her lover’s murderers were holed up, and killed them. That earned her a badass nickname: “The Dark Lady of Doona“.