Editing Grace O'Malley (section)

==Biographical sources==
In her 2006 biography of O'Malley, Irish historian and novelist [[Anne Chambers (author)|Anne Chambers]] described her as:

{{blockquote|a fearless leader, by land and by sea, a political pragmatist and politician, a ruthless plunderer, a mercenary, a rebel, a shrewd and able negotiator, the protective matriarch of her family and tribe, a genuine inheritor of the Mother Goddess and Warrior Queen attributes of her remote ancestors. Above all else, she emerges as a woman who broke the mould and thereby played a unique role in history.<ref>''Granuaile: Grace O'Malley: Grace O'Malley – Ireland's Pirate Queen'', by Anne Chambers; Foreword; Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2006; {{ISBN|0717151743}}, 9780717151745</ref>}}

Documentary evidence for O'Malley's life comes mostly from English sources, as she is not mentioned in the Irish annals. The Ó Máille family "book", a collection of eulogistic bardic poetry and other material of the sort kept by aristocratic Gaelic households of the period, has not survived. There are no contemporary images of her. An important source of information is the eighteen "Articles of Interrogatory", questions put to her in writing on behalf of Elizabeth I.<ref name="Chambers 2003"/> She is also mentioned in the English State Papers and in other documents of the kind, an example being a letter sent by the Lord Deputy, [[Sir Henry Sidney]], to his son [[Phillip Sidney|Phillip]] in 1577: "There came to mee a most famous femynyne sea captain called Grace Imallye, and offred her service unto me, wheresoever I woulde command her, with three gallyes and two hundred fightinge men&nbsp;..."<ref name="Lambeth Palace Library 2003, p. 85"/>

Local traditions concerning her were collected by Irish scholar [[John O'Donovan (scholar)|John O'Donovan]] in the 1830s and 1840s on behalf of the [[Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland|Ordnance Survey of Ireland]]. In a letter of 1838, he describes her as being "most vividly remembered by tradition and people were living in the last generation who conversed with people who knew her personally".

{{blockquote|Charles Cormick of Erris, now 74 years and six weeks old, saw and conversed with Elizabeth O'Donnell of Newtown within the Mullet, who died about 65 years ago who had seen and intimately known a Mr Walsh who remembered O'Malley. Walsh died at the age of 107 and his father was the same age as O'Malley.<ref>Gaisford St Lawrence Papers, cited in Chambers 2003, p. 73</ref>}}

A story is recorded of O'Malley chiding her son Tíoboíd in the course of an attack on [[Kanturk]] Castle, when she thought he was shirking the battle: {{lang|ga|"An ag iarraidh dul i bhfolach ar mo thóin atá tú, an áit a dtáinig tú as?"}} ("Are you trying to hide in my arse, the place that you came out of?").<ref name="Ordnance Survey Letters 2003">Ordnance Survey Letters, Mayo, vol. II, cited in Chambers 2003, spelling modernised.</ref> She is also recorded as saying, with regard to her followers, {{lang|ga|"go mb'fhearr léi lán loinge de chlann Chonraoi agus de chlann Mhic an Fhailí ná lán loinge d'ór"}} (that she would rather have a shipload of Conroys and MacAnallys than a shipload of gold).<ref name="Ordnance Survey Letters 2003"/>