When Ireland was Pirate Central

[corsair91]

When Ireland was Pirate Central

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/when-ireland-was-pirate-central-1.3488021

St Patrick was Irish pirates’ most famous captive. 1,400 years later we were still at it

Tue, May 8, 2018
Des Ekin


Granuaile is another version of Grace O' Malley


EDIT:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/culture/revealing-the-pirate-republic-862190.html

[Salty Dog]

I had absolutely no idea piracy occurred at such a scale in Ireland! Thanks!

[corsair91]

Tourism Article with some Pirate content.
Wild Atlantic Way is an Irish West Atlantic Coastal Scenic Road Route.


6 Places In Ireland That Were Terrorised By Pirates

https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/6-places-ireland-terrorised-pirates/

Ah pirates, those ruthless, violent rogues who terrorised the high seas and became the colourful anti-heroes of books and movies. We typically associate pirates with the Caribbean and other warm locations, but over the centuries Ireland has been both a birthplace of piracy and a victim of pirate raids.

Fiona Hurley from Tales of the Wild Atlantic Way outlines a few Irish locations where you can find traces of piratical history. Yo ho ho and a bottle of poitín!


1. Clew Bay, County Mayo – Home of the Pirate Queen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clew_Bay

Her name was Gráinne Ní Mháille, her father chieftain of the O’Malley clan of Clew Bay. The English would call her Grace O’Malley. As a child, she asked her Dad to let her sail with him; he told her that her long hair would get caught in the ship’s ropes, so she shaved her head and snuck on board with the boys. This gained her the nickname Gráinne Mhaol (“Bald Gráinne”), or Granuaile.

She would grow up to become the most powerful woman in Connacht, running a lucrative pirate base from her home on Clare Island. Her first husband was so troublesome and disorganised that she took on his role as chieftain even before he died in battle.

From her second husband, she gained control of Rockfleet Castle on the shores of Clew Bay – and promptly divorced him. She attracted loyalty from multiple clans who were normally at war with one another, in an age when few men would accept authority from a woman. She must have been formidable.

In 1593, a 60-year-old Granuaile sailed to London to negotiate the release of her son and half-brother, then imprisoned by the governor of Connacht. Queen Elizabeth I was impressed enough by this wild Irishwoman to order the release of Granuaile’s relatives, on condition that she refrained from further pirating. But the Pirate Queen hadn’t long returned to Clew Bay when she reneged on this promise, and she kept on plundering despite her advanced years. She spent her final days at Rockfleet and was buried at Clare Island Abbey. Her descendants built Westport House on the foundations of one of her many castles.

You can still see some of her properties around Clew Bay: Granuaile’s Castle on Clare Island, Rockfleet Castle near Newport, and Kildavnit Castle on Achill Island. In Westport House, you can visit her dungeons. The grounds of Westport House also contain a Pirate Adventure Park, where children can play at being Pirate Queens and Kings near where Granuaile once ruled the seas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O%27Malley



2. West Cork coast – A haven for crooks

In the early 1600s, a group of English sea captains found themselves hiding out in Ireland. Queen Elizabeth I had employed them as “privateers” to harry and raid the ships of her Spanish rivals. Her successor, James I, made peace with the Spanish and no longer had need for them. But the plundering life was a hard one to leave behind, especially when there were friendly harbours to be found on the rugged West Cork coastline.

The locals were happy to help out, as long as they got a share in the profits. Merchants sponsored pirate missions, while alcohol sales and prostitution thrived. The judiciary took their cut; even the Vice-Admiral of Munster was involved. In Dutchman’s Cove and Canty’s Cove, steps were carved out of rock to facilitate the movement of goods up from the beach. At Leamcon Castle, William Hull ran a thriving enterprise dealing with stolen goods.

Crookhaven had originally been named for local baronet Sir Thomas Crooke, but its name became more apt when the town served as a base for illegal activities. According to Sir Henry Mainwaring, a pirate turned pirate hunter, “Ireland may well be called the nursery and storehouse of pirates.”

This cheery set of affairs (from the viewpoint of the pirates and their allies) was dealt a deadly blow in 1613 when the Dutch attacked Crookhaven Harbour. Some of the surviving pirates escaped to seek their fortunes on the Barbary Coast or in the Caribbean.

The West Cork peninsulas – Beara, Sheep’s Head, Mizen Head – are still beautifully untamed. Signposts for the Wild Atlantic Way will lead you to some of the hidden places where piracy once flourished.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookhaven
https://northoltgrange.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/crookhaven/



3. Saltee Islands, County Wexford – Treasure islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltee_Islands

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the remote Saltee Islands found themselves in the path of a major trading route between Britain and its new American colonies. Pirates from Spain and France used the islands as a base to plundering any unlucky ships that passed by.

Locals helped themselves to salvage from the many shipwrecks, sometimes even luring the boats towards the rocky shores. The islands became known as the “the graveyard of a thousand ships”. It is said that treasure is still hidden in places such as Lady Walker’s Cave or Hell Hole.

Today the Saltee Islands are uninhabited, but tourist boats sail from Kilmore Quay to Great Saltee. You’re unlikely to find treasure, but you will enjoy the company of many seabirds.



4. Dublin – A city founded by raiders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin

The Vikings were Scandinavian pirates of the early Middle Ages, terrifying the Irish population as they plundered up and down the coast. They were also responsible for founding some of the earliest Irish towns, including a little place they called Dyflin (from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning “Black Pool”).

Dyflin became a major trading centre, ruled by Vikings and their descendants for three centuries. They were eventually defeated by Irish High King Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.

Those Viking days are recalled by two of Dublin’s most popular tourist attractions: the Dublinia museum at Christchurch, and the Viking Splash Tours that run from St Stephen’s Green. Both are recommended for children of all ages.



5. Baltimore, County Cork – The stolen village
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore,_County_Cork

On 19th June 1631, the inhabitants of Baltimore in West Cork settled down for the evening. At the same time, a group of ships anchored themselves at an inlet just outside their harbour. They were a fleet of Barbary Corsairs, pirates from the coast of North Africa. At around two in the morning, they ran up the pebbled beach and attacked.

Their night raid took 109 villagers, half of them children, and transported them in chains to far-away Algiers. It was the largest ever attack by Barbary pirates on Ireland or Great Britain. The Algerians demanded ransom, but the remaining few inhabitants of Baltimore lacked the money. Despite desperate pleas from those left behind (including William Gunter, who lost his wife and seven sons), the Irish and British authorities wouldn’t pay either. The unfortunate captives were sold into slavery, and only two are known to have ever returned to Ireland.

In Baltimore today, the name of the Algiers Inn recalls that terrible night when an entire village was enslaved by North African pirates.



6. Kinsale, County Cork – Birthplace of Anne Bonny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsale

Piracy was a male-dominated business, but a few tough women broke through that glass ceiling with cutlass and pistol, and one of the toughest was Anne Bonny. Anne was born in Kinsale in about 1700, and she was causing trouble from birth. Her father was lawyer William McCormac, and her mother was his servant Mary Brennan – which greatly angered William’s wife! William took young Anne and her mother to the Charleston in South Carolina to escape the scandal.

Red-haired Anne was stubborn and vicious; she once stabbed a servant with a knife, and beat one man so thoroughly he spent months in hospital (although in the latter case he deserved it, having tried to rape her).

At 16, she married small-time pirate James Bonny; she was disowned by her despairing father and moved to the pirate haven of Nassau in the Bahamas. But the cowardly James turned informant, so she left him for the more flamboyant “Calico Jack” Rackham, captain of the wonderfully-named Revenge. Kinsale girl Anne Bonny became one of the most notorious pirates of the 18th-century Caribbean. You may know her from the TV series Back Sails, where she is played by Clara Paget.

Modern Kinsale is still a town proud of its maritime heritage. Wandering its colourful streets and its harbour, you can imagine the place that gave birth to a pirate legend.

[corsair91]

More on the Pirate Raid on Baltimore in West Cork


Pirate raid’s gory details captured in exhibition

By Sean O’Riordan
July 16, 2012

https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/pirate-raids-gory-details-captured-in-exhibition-200829.html

Pirates who sacked a West Cork village in 1631 sold more than double the amount of its inhabitants into slavery than was previously thought, new research has found.

And 381 years later, a life-size mannequin of the man who led the North African pirates’ raid on Baltimore has arrived in the seaside village’s Dun na Sead castle.

The mannequin of pirateer Murat Reis, a Dutchman who converted to Islam, now takes pride of place in a museum exhibition which has just opened there.

English accounts of the Reis raid show that 107 men, women, and children were loaded on to two ships and taken to North Africa, where they were sold as slaves.

However, Bernadette McCarthy, who restored the castle with her husband Patrick, has written a book which details how a French archivist of the time believed 235 slaves were taken.

Ms McCarthy says it is entirely plausible “that the English only recorded the names of their own settlers’ on the list of abducted, ignoring the native Irish”.

Either way, the vast majority were sold at slave markets in Algiers, Morocco, and Tripoli.

Some of the women ended up as concubines in the courts of rich North Africans.

The Barbary pirates’ raid is the only one documented to have occurred in Ireland or Britain.

However, the locals were not adverse to a bit of piracy, pillage, and plunder themselves, as the exhibition recounts.

As far back as 1072, Baltimore had its own resident ‘hard men’ — the O’Driscoll clan — who were very adept at attacking passing vessels.

They grew so bold they even launched attacks on Waterford.

The exhibition recounts how in 1381 English admirals were appointed specifically to prevent the clan looting merchant vessels.

However, little was done to prevent their lucrative activities over the next 150 years.

The clan sealed its own fate after plundering a Portuguese merchantman bound for Waterford in 1537.

The Déise (Waterford) men responded by attacking Baltimore and the O’Driscoll strongholds on the local islands, burning 50 of their 80-strong fleet. That finished them as pirates.

According to Patrick McCarthy the full extent of the village’s piratical history has been kept under wraps until now. He says Baltimore was known all over for centuries as a safe haven for pirates.

[corsair91]

Luke Ryan & The Black Fleet - The Irish Pirates Who Sailed For Benjamin Franklin

Part 1
http://josefoshea.blogspot.com/2014/03/luke-ryan-black-fleet-irish-pirates-who.html

Part 2
http://josefoshea.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/the-true-history-of-pirate-luke-ryan.html

Part 3
http://josefoshea.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-true-history-and-tragic-demise-of.html


The story of the Pirate Luke Ryan - a Dubliner who commanded an entire Black Fleet of Irish Privateers, heavily armed, expertly crewed pirate ships, that sailed under the secret orders of Benjamin Franklin, and helped win the War of Independence for the United States.



Luke Ryan article

An Irish Buccaneer
https://www.historyireland.com/early-modern-history-1500-1700/an-irish-buccaneer/

https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/10/luke-ryan-premier-privateer/

[corsair91]

It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here’s a look at Ireland’s Piratey Past

https://coastmonkey.ie/talk-pirate-ireland-past/

Ann Robinson
19th September 2018


As an island nation we have produced some of the world’s most renowned seafarers –

they’ve led explorations around the globe,
https://coastmonkey.ie/shackletons-endurance/

helped create the navies of several nations
https://coastmonkey.ie/john-barry-wexford-american-navy/

and displayed levels of heroism and gallantry that are truly remarkable.
https://coastmonkey.ie/captain-john-mcneill-boyd/

But we’ve also produced our fair share of the downright unmerciful, blood thirsty and unscrupulous pirates!


It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here’s a look at Ireland’s piratey past! Arrrrrrrgh


1. Gráinne Ní Mháille (AKA Grace O’Malley) the Pirate Queen

Fearless and formidable this 16th century icon ruled the land and sea on the west coast. She defied convention and rose to new heights where women were typically not allowed to tread.

In a time when women were effectively powerless she became incredibly powerful and even feared. As a women she was never officially a chieftain but she became a leader of men, taking control and fighting for what she believed in; independence, love and family. She ruled her lands with an iron fist, and became notorious around the Irish coast and further afield, commanding a fleet of ships with around 200 men, raiding rival clans and merchants. She fought for independence and to free for her people against the tyranny of the crown.

Her story is the stuff of legends.



2. Lost Beer of Inishturk – A Pirate Secret gone to the Grave

The story goes there were Danish Pirates who used the Dun at Portdoon on Inishturk to hide their boats and their bounty. And with them alone lay the recipe for Bier lochlannach, a priceless and highly spirituous beverage made from the heather-bloom.

One day the pirate base was attacked and taken by the Irish who did away with the inmates except for one Dane pirate and his son. The attackers offered to spare the captives if they told the secret of the highly prized drink. The old pirate, fearing the boy might be tortured into betrayal, said he would tell if his son was put to death first, so none of his kin might see his treachery. But with this done, the pirate captain tore himself from his captors, and ran, shouting insults, to the deep chasm, springing over the cliff and carrying his secret to the grave.



3. Anne Bonny and the Golden Age of Piracy

Anne Bonny
https://coastmonkey.ie/anne-bonny/

is one of the world’s most infamous pirates. She left Cork at a young age and moved with her father to the States. There the fiery-tempered adventurer got involved with Calico Jack and together they set out for a life of pillaging, pirating and recklessness on the high seas.

At the time it was considered bad luck to have a woman aboard a ship but Anne could more than hold her own and did not conceal her gender to the rest of the crew. She was just as fierce and fearless in battle as the rest of the crew. In 1720 another women Mary Read joined the crew. She was disguised as a man and only Bonny and Calico knew the truth. The pair became two most famed female pirates of all time.



4. Sack of Baltimore – West Cork Village laid Waste by Pirates

The residents of Baltimore were taken completely by surprise when the village was raided by over 200 pirates
https://coastmonkey.ie/baltimore-1631-poem-daniel-wade/

from the Barbary Coast of North Africa. On 20th June 1631 the village was pillaged and attacked by the Ottoman Algeria and Republic of Salé slavers. They set the thatched roofs alight and captured over 100 villages, including women and children, and took them away to a life of slavery in North Africa.



5. James Kirker – Pirate, Mercenary and Scalp Hunter

https://coastmonkey.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/james-kirker.jpg

Kirker was born in Killead Co. Antrim in 1793. He left Ireland at 16 and moved to the States to avoid conscription in the Royal Navy. There he became an American privateer and raided British ships off the East Coast of the US. He later was involved with fur trading in the Rocky Mountains.

He is most infamously known for being scalp hunter. After moving to Mexico and setting up a new family with his second wife he was contracted by the Mexican government to kill or capture Apache Indians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kirker



6. Legendary Tory Island Pirates

Tory Island is a world apart – the island’s history is wrapped up with mystery and legends.
https://coastmonkey.ie/tory-island/
https://www.theirishstore.com/blog/10-things-need-know-irelands-weirdest-island/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_Island
(Tory Island is approx 14.5 km north west off Donegal)

The first inhabitants of the island were said to be wicked Fomorians – a band of pirates and smugglers who were ruled by King Balor of the Evil Eye. On the east of the island was Balor’s Fort. One theory of the naming of the island comes from the Irish for pirate or robber torai.



7. Edward Jordon

Edward Jordon was born in Co. Carlow in 1771. He was an Irish rebel and took part in the Irish Rebellions of 1798. He was captured during the rebellion but pardoned and moved to Nova Scotia to start a new live as a fisherman.

But he found himself in a desperate situation drowning in debts. Captain Stairs and his crew were sent by merchants to seize the allotted quota of fish they were owned. But when Jordon didn’t have it they were forced to seize his schooner Three Sisters. Stairs offered Jordon and his family passage to Halifax on board the ship and so on the 10th September the Three Sisters set sail with Jordon, his wife and his four children and Captain Stairs and his crew.

A few days into the trip Jordon pulled out his pistol and shot at Captain Stairs but he missed and killed one of the crew. There was a struggle and Stairs managed to jump overboard and swim safely to shore where he alerted the authorities.

A reward was offered to capture ‘the pirate Jordon’ and a few weeks later the Royal Navy schooner HMS Cuttle captured Jordon. He was convicted of piracy and executed in Halifax. As a warning to other pirate his body was displayed in public in an iron cage called a gibbet at Black Rock in Point Pleasant. His skull was displayed in an exhibit on pirates in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jordan_(pirate)

[corsair91]

Drinks company article with some Pirate content


When Irish Pirates Ruled the Seas

https://oldmooresalmanac.com/irish-pirates-rum/

What we will do with the drunken sailor? Let’s steal all his rum.


You may have heard of Wild Geese Irish Whiskey, but did you know they also make rum? The Wild Geese Rum Collection honours the memory of a band of Irish people who escaped slavery and political upheaval in Ireland to become Caribbean pirates.

The “Wild Geese” as they became known were wildly successful in the plundering and marauding business. And they liked a good drink. But why make a rum celebrating Irish pirates? Well, because it has an interesting backstory, big enough to catch the interest of the Irish diaspora.


The “Wild Geese” fled Ireland to escape indentured slavery and political persecution. They made themselves known over four centuries in the pirate world. About 15% of pirates in the Caribbean were, in fact, Irish. And these guys loved a drop of booze. They drank whatever they could get their hands on, mostly stolen from other vessels and from mainland settlements.


Loose Canons

The impact of the pirates at this time changed the way the Atlantic looked for several hundred years. The pirates were loose canons, and they defied traditional seafaring alliances. They attacked the merchant vessels of all nations, and they upset the capitalist trading system that was trying to establish itself.

These pirates were a scourge to the trade routes along the “Middle Passage” (a route that saw millions of slaves from Africa shipped to the New World). For pirates, these routes held riches. If they could capture a ship plying its way to America, they were in for a damn good time. The treasure up for grabs along these routes was worth the risk of capture.

In fact, piracy caused such a disruption during this time that growth for the exporting countries was often momentarily halted. But it did ramp up the insurance industry of the time: ships didn’t leave shore unless they had insurance not only for natural disasters, but for the menace of piracy as well.

While a good portion of the buccaneers of the seventeenth century were known to be made up of escaped Irish indentured slaves, their ranks also included embittered Dutch sailors, abandoned French colonists, and abused English and Scots.


A Life Of Freedom

The pirates of the early eighteenth century, however, were men who acted on their own. These pirates were unauthorised entities who worked outside the more socially accepted scenarios and did not discriminate when conducting their raids. If you had loot they were going to get you. By this late stage of the game, the act of piracy was hugely criminal and came with horrible consequences. But many took their chances for the promise of a life of freedom.

Piracy was also attractive to Africans and African-Americans in the early 19th century, who made up 20% of the numbers. Like many Irish pirates, they were escaping slavery. The risky freedom of piracy was preferable to captivity.


Comrades In Arms

So how did the pirates treat each other? From all walks of life and living in cramped quarters, you’d think they would have killed each other quite regularly. But that didn’t happen. Most reports show that they got along quite well and even consistently showed solidarity for each other, developing strong feelings of group loyalty. Communities of pirates were willing to join forces at sea and in port, even when the various crews were strangers to each other.

And once they got together, they liked to eat and drink. Unlike legitimate sailors, who laboured under an institutionalised hierarchy (and the lower ranks got the worst rations), the “wild geese” shared whatever bounty they stole equally. Often they would get more food than legitimate sailors. In fact, scarcity of food turned legitimate sailors to pirating because they were fed up with being half-starved.

Pirates considered booze to be of equal importance to food. But like all pirates should, they burned through the booze way faster than on traditional, legitimate ships, where booze was rationed.

A drink called “Flip,” was a pirate favourite, made of rum, beer, and sugar, served warm, often in a tin can. Punch was also a favourite. This was pretty much anything they could get their hands on and share. One rum version was called “bumboe.” Sounds good!

But you, dear reader, don’t have to raid your liquor cabinet to make a gross and weird-tasting pirate punch. You can just drink an award-winning rum, with aftertones of piracy and danger. And, you don’t have to worry about falling overboard.


Ships ahoy!

[corsair91]

Irish pirates List

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_pirates

21 March 2013

Pirates who originated from Ireland or spent a notable part of their careers in Ireland.


B

Anne Bonny
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny

William Burke (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Burke_(pirate)

C

John Cornelius (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cornelius_(pirate)

George Cusack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cusack

E

Edward England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_England

F

Philip Fitzgerald (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Fitzgerald_(pirate)


G

Robert Glover (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Glover_(pirate)

J

Henry Johnson (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Johnson_(pirate)

Edward Jordan (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jordan_(pirate)


K

Walter Kennedy (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kennedy_(pirate)

M

Martha Farley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Farley

N

Richard Noland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Noland

O

Grace O'Malley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O%27Malley

https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/irelands-pirate-queen-twelve-fascinating-facts-legendary-grace-omalley-129406

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-importance-of-irish-pirates-42396485/

R

Philip Roche (pirate)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Roche_(pirate)

V

John Vidal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vidal

[corsair91]

Howth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howth

Howth is a village and outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland.
The district as a whole occupies the greater part of the peninsula of Howth Head, which forms the northern boundary of Dublin Bay.



Howth and Pirates

http://www.secret-ireland.com/howth-pirates/

February 25, 2015


Conaire Mor, was the king of Ireland around the first century BC. He was considered a wise king, and the bardic poets tell us that while he ruled “there was such abundance of good-will that no one slew another in Erin (Ireland). . . To everyone in Erin his fellow’s voice seemed as sweet as the strings of a lute. From mid-spring to mid-autumn no wind disturbed a cow’s tail. His reign was neither thunderous nor stormy”.

Conaire had three foster brothers, however, who constantly conspired against him and sought to replace him as king. They were lawless and troublesome and Conaire, too kind-hearted to have them killed, exiled them instead. The brothers joined forces with a pirate named Ingcel who had been banished from his native Britain, and with him they roamed the seas, plundering wherever they went.

When he was over sixty years of age, Conaire, against the advice of his Druids, rode out of Tara to settle a dispute between contending chieftains, in violation of a geis (taboo). As his retinue travelled towards the Hostel at Da Derga, his progress was being tracked – on the hill of Howth the treacherous foster brothers and Ingcel had placed their spies, while they themselves waited in their ships below, close to the sheltering cliffs. The king’s cavalcade of warriors, horses and seventeen chariots were unaware of this danger from the sea until the pirates steered their ships across Dublin bay, and onto the Merrion shore the “ships were cast by a mighty wave with a shock that made Da Derga’s house tremble to its foundations”. Conaire Mor and all those sheltering in the hostel were killed, and another golden age came to an end….

The sight of such pirates would not have been at all unusual in Howth – piracy was common on the Irish Sea from the earliest times, and there are many accounts of ships being attacked and plundered by Scottish-, Welsh-, and Irish-based pirates, particularly in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. A letter was written to the Lord Deputy Birmingham in1548 stating that Logan, a Scottish pirate, was “hovering about Lambay and the Head of Howth and has taken several vessels”. Spanish and French privateers were not uncommon either, while corsairs were known to have come from as far away as Algeria, and, in 1631, the packet boat between Holyhead and Dublin was robbed by Turkish pirates. In order to assist in the safe passage of trading and mail ships, the Royal Navy sailed the Irish Sea regularly but there were too few ships to patrol too large an area.

Howth was reported to be among those ports used as bases by the pirates, and the Navy provided Nicholas, the 23rd Lord Howth (1597 – 1644), with a small ship in Howth, the “Ninth Whelp”, armed with sixteen pieces of ordnance including four brass cannons. The Ninth Whelp often escorted or carried luminaries such as the Earl of Cork, Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland and one of the architects of the plantation of Munster, and Sir William Brereton, a commander of the parliamentary forces in the English Civil war. Though the stationing of the ship in Howth helped to cut the losses caused by pirates, it was a temporary solution only. For Nicholas St Lawrence, piracy was just one problem among many at a time of great turmoil throughout the country, from the plague of 1606 to the rebellion of 1641. In 1640 the “Ninth Whelp” sank in a storm off the west coast of Scotland, and piracy remained a problem for at least another hundred years. In 1692, for example, French privateers plundered a packet boat that was anchored in the bay. As late as 1777 three American privateers, the Lexington, Reprisal and Dolphin, captured fourteen merchant ships on the Irish Sea, with one of the three remaining off Howth for a considerable time.

Nicholas’ great-grandfather was Christopher St Lawrence, the 20th lord of Howth (called “The Blind Lord” due to his poor eyesight) (1510-1589). The famous “kidnapping of the heir” is commonly thought to have occurred during his tenure. Granuaile, or Grace O’Malley, the “Pirate Queen”, called to Howth Castle while visiting the Lord Deputy in 1576 and found to her anger that the castle gate was closed, the family being at dinner. In retaliation for the inhospitability of the family, she carried off Lord Howth’s young son, whom she had encountered on the beach. He was only released when Granuaile was given a promise that the gate would never again be locked at dinner time. Other versions of the story, however, state that it was not Granuaile who abducted the child but rather the Mayo chieftain Richard O’Cuairsci. Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh, writing in 1650 in his Great Book of Genealogies, said “This is the very same Richard who took the Lord of Beann Eadair and brought him with him to Tirawley and there was naught else required of him for his ransom but to keep the door of his court open at dinner time.”

As an aside, this Christopher, “The Blind Lord”, was not known for his familial sentimentality. He was imprisoned in Dublin Castle on one occasion and fined £1000 for cruelty to his family. The Order Book of the Court of Castle Chambers, Dublin for 1579 noted his conviction for beating his wife to an extent that she could not leave the bed for two weeks. Before she was fully recovered, he had beaten her again, so badly that “her skin was so taken away that for many days she could not abide any clothes to touch her.” He was also convicted of beating the butler because the man had given the wife bread and a drink while she was locked in a room. Most serious of all, he was convicted of beating his thirteen year old daughter Jane, giving the ‘simple terrified girl’, “some say forty, some say sixty, strokes of the rod on her bare back, so that within two days she fell into an ague, and so died”.

[corsair91]

Arrgh! Adventures of 17th-Century Pirate Alliance Uncovered in Ireland

https://www.livescience.com/43696-17th-century-pirate-alliance-uncovered-in-ireland.html


Owen Jarus
February 26, 2014


see webpage for Full article including photos


An alliance of pirates preyed on ships laden with treasure, outmatched Britain's Royal Navy, elected their own admiral and, ultimately, were destroyed in a cataclysmic battle against a Dutch fleet in 1614. They were a pirate alliance which operated on the southwest coast of Munster, Ireland, in the early 17th century, and now new archaeological and historical research reveals new details about their adventures.

Among the recent archaeological discoveries that may be connected to the alliance are two remote sites, each with a set of stairs reaching almost to the sea. One of them, located at modern-day "Dutchman's Cove," east of Baltimore, Ireland, held niches where candles or lanterns were used to signal pirates and smugglers who came in the dead of night. Another staircase at modern-day "Gokane Point" (also called "Streek Head"), located on the edge of a headland into Crookhaven Harbor, leads to a subterranean cavern with a waterway by which boats could enter.

[See Photos of the 'Pirate Alliance' Sites in Ireland]
https://www.livescience.com/43693-photos-17th-century-pirate-alliance.html

Both archaeological sites are unexcavated. Connie Kelleher, the underwater archaeologist who explored them, said she is not sure if they date back to the early 17th century. However, they would have been used by pirates and smugglers at some point, said Kelleher, a state underwater archaeologist with the Ireland National Monuments Service's underwater archaeology unit.

https://www.livescience.com/15866-caribbean-pirates-archaeology.html


"Sites like that would have been used over a very long period by pirates, smugglers and others who wanted to do secret things,"Kelleher told Live Science in an email. Kelleher made Munster's early-17th-century pirates the focus of her doctoral thesis at Trinity College, Dublin, and her results are now detailed in the Journal of Maritime Archaeology. In addition to doing archaeological research, she analyzed historical records.

"One pirate haul is said to have been worth, in today's money, some $7 million," Kelleher said. "This was an amazingly lucrative commercial venture, and this is why it was so successful."

In the early 17th century, many of the pirates in Munster were Englishmen,
https://www.livescience.com/11389-notorious-pirates.html

but there were also Irish, Flemish and "renegade" Dutchmen. The records list one of the pirates as being black. "A pirate named Arthur Drake, who was lieutenant to pirate Capt. Robert Stephenson, is one of the only known black men to have held a position of command in a pirate crew," said Kelleher.

Searching for a lost pirate fleet

Kelleher plans to search Crookhaven Harbor for the pirate-alliance fleet destroyed by the Dutch in 1614. While some of the cargo and sails from these ships were salvaged after the battle — Kelleher found a list of loot from one ship — there could still be more for archaeologists to find.

[Arrgh! Photos Reveal 'Pirates of the Caribbean']
https://www.livescience.com/15865-photos-pirates-caribbean.html


"Certainly part of the lower hulls and its cargoes could be there — things that were in the hold of the ships," Kelleher said. "Similarly, if a ship exploded, then material could be scattered, and we could be dealing with a wider archaeological site."

It would be difficult for the researchers to determine if any ships they find belonged to the pirates, Kelleher said, though any intact cargo onboard could be matched up with historical records. "It would be amazing to find such a ship, she said. "Apart from the contribution it would make to our knowledge of ships from that period, it would be the first definitive pirate-associated wreck found in Irish waters discovered to date and one associated with such a tragic event."

Birth of the pirate alliance

Although pirates existed in Munster before the 17th century, a series of events led to the formation of an alliance in the area dominated by English pirates. In 1603, a new king — James I of England (VI of Scotland) — assumed the throne, uniting England and Scotland. He made peace with the Spanish, outlawed the practice of privateering (in which private sailors would be given consent by Britain to attack enemy ships) and cracked down on pirates in southern England.

As a result, the former privateers became pirates and moved their families to Munster, which, at the time, was the site of a British colonization program. With some distance between themselves and the king, the pirates thrived — their booty was smuggled ashore (often with the implicit consent of local officials), fueling the local economy.

In return for the locals allowing the booty to be brought ashore, the pirates bought local goods at three times the normal price. It was a lucrative scheme that attracted not just pirates, but also businessmen, and helped pay for colonial projects in the New World. During this time, individuals invested in colonization projects in the Americas, such as Jamestown and Bermuda.

"Legitimate businessmen and merchant venturers were deeply involved, as it was assured access to venture capital, that was, in turn, invested in colonial ventures elsewhere in the New World, which was opening up to the maritime empires globally at this point in time," Kelleher said in the email.

The pirates also collaborated to deal with common problems. For instance, in 1609, the pirateselected an "admiral" named Richard Bishop, Kelleher said. "Bishop could perhaps correctly be called the pirates' broker, as he successfully bridged the gap between official and unofficial operations, middleman to the middlemen," Kelleher wrote in the journal article.

The pirates also decided to limit their attacks to ships coming from countries that they judged to be traditional enemies of Britain, such as Spain.

Growing strength

The strength of the pirate alliance grew quickly, outmatching anything the Royal Navy could send against them.

In 1609, a senior government official in Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, wrote to Lord Salisbury, saying the pirates "are grown to a height of strength and pride that [efforts to combat them] will hardly prevail without the assistance of some of His Majesty's good ships." King James, who had reduced the size of the Royal Navy to save money, did not have the ships in Ireland to take on the pirate alliance, Kelleher said.

In addition to their home bases in Ireland, the pirates sailed seasonally to North Africa and Newfoundland (in modern-day Canada) making contacts with the people there that allowed them to resupply their ships. This extended their range and allowed them to send their fleets away from Ireland when the weather became inhospitable.

Defeat of the pirate alliance

While King James was unable to take on the pirate alliance, the Dutch were. The pirates had been preying on Dutch ships, and by 1612, the Dutch government was making plans to attack them, suggests a detailed "anti-pirate" chart showing Munster's pirate bases dating to that time.

In 1614, after getting consent from King James to capture the pirates and turn them over to local authorities, the Dutch attacked Crookhaven. Dutch Capt. Moy Lambert destroyed a pirate fleet under Capt. Patrick Myagh, Kelleher wrote in her journal article.

A scroll written by English trader Edward Davenant and analyzed by Kelleher gives a play-by-play of the attack. "In an attempt to escape, Capt. Myagh, his two sons and fellow crew members jumped overboard but were caught and murdered by Lambert's crew; his third son survived but was seriously wounded. Others also attempted to make it ashore and were assisted by locals," Kelleher wrote.

Lambert proceeded to loot Myagh's ship, the scroll noted. "What he did manage to take included 3 whole pieces of satin, 3 whole pieces of silk grograine, about 1 whole piece of velvet, 120 whole pieces of Holland cloth, 24 whole pieces of canvas, 1 chest containing about 300 turbans, 2 great chests of sugar, 1 chest of sweetmeats, silver and gold, coined and uncoined, to the value of £3,000," Kelleher wrote. "The goods taken were given an overall value of some £5,000.” Some of these goods were obtained through plunder by Myagh's men, but some, such as the turbans, may have been from trade the pirates conducted in North Africa, she said.

The defeat of the pirates exposed the vulnerability of their base at Crookhaven. Additionally, the same year, a port used by the pirates at Mamora, in North Africa, was lost to the Spanish, and new legislation was passed that allowed for pirates to be tried and executed in Ireland. (Before that, the pirates had to be sent to England for trial.)

"Piracy continued, however — but in a changed format from 1615 onwards, when we see the Algerian Turks and Barbary Corsairs taking over," Kelleher said in the email.

[Salty Dog]

The Importance of Irish Pirates
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By Joseph Caputo
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
MARCH 17, 2009
54842
Without pirates, there may not have been a St. Patrick. According to historians, 1,500-year-old lore states that St. Patrick was born in Banwen, Wales, kidnapped by pirates at the age of 16, and made a slave in Ireland for 6 years. During that period, St. Patrick turned to religion and came up with the idea of converting the Irish to Christianity.

Here’s where mythology takes over. After studying to be a priest in France, St. Patrick returns to Ireland and uses a staff to banish snakes from the Emerald isle. While it’s true, there are no snakes in Ireland today, historians believe that the snakes in the tale are metaphorical pagans. The myth is an allegory for how the saint brought Christianity to Ireland.

St. Patrick is one of the most recognizable Irish personas, although another celebrity from history, one of more questionable merits, also resonates with the nation. The name of Irish Pirate Queen Granuaile, a regular royal pain for English, has long been synonymous with Ireland.

It was her rebellious nature that's made her such an icon. Born in 1530, Granuaile learned the ways of the sea from her father, and disregarded the "proper" female role as homemaker and went on to become a ferocious leader and sea captain. According to legend, she fought off English troops by pouring molten lead on them. As the saying goes, "Women who behave, rarely make history."

[Salty Dog]

Granuaile was destined to meet another powerful woman, Queen Elizabeth I of England. In July 1593, The Pirate Queen sailed to London to request the release of her sons and half-brother from captivity. Aside from a minor faux-pas in which Granuaile threw a noblewomen's handkerchief into the fire, Elizabeth took a liking to her, and granted Granuaile's request on the condition that she stop causing trouble for English troops.

The contract was a success but Granuaile, who loathed the English, couldn't hold her end of the bargain. "She returns to Ireland where she leads a double life, sometimes appearing to cooperate with authorities and sometimes doing things contrary to this agreement." says Dan Milner, an Irish-American folk singer. This appearance of cooperating with England while simultaneously supporting rebellion became a powerful message for the Irish people and one celebrated in the centuries to come.

Milner sings one Granuaile-inspired tune in his new Smithsonian Folkways album, "Irish Pirate Ballads and Other Songs of the Sea." The song, adapted from the 18th-century political ballad "Granu-weal" tells the story of a metaphorical courtesan encouraging Granuaile to get chummy with Britain. "The people with nationalist sympathies who wrote the song are saying that England is trying to seduce Ireland," Milner says. "This is an anti-home rule sentiment. They’re using the current political context and applying it to the Granuaile of old."

Though pirates are "people who stand uneasy next to the law," as Milner puts it, they also helped build the Irish nation. So take off that clover and put on an eye-patch. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

[corsair91]

How a Secret Map Brought Down a Pirate Alliance on the Irish Coast

Now archaeologists are using it to search for evidence of clandestine activity.
by Erin Mullally
September 29, 2020

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/secret-irish-pirate-republic


1614 Dutch attack on the Crookhaven, County Cork Ireland
pirate alliance - pirate havens.