A “PRINCESS OF THULE” IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
By Rev. THOMAS B. WILLSON, M.A.
Away in the far, far West of Ireland, the great Clew Bay indents the coast of the County of Mayo. At the northern entrance of this bay rise the mighty cliffs of Achill, against which the long Atlantic rollers dash themselves, in all weathers, with unceasing spray, and after a storm with terrific fury. On the south the promontory of Old Head, near Lewisburg, rises abruptly from the sea, but with less striking cliffs than on the northern side.
The bay is surrounded by hills and mountains, bare for the most part of trees, but clad in the richest purple by the heather in the summer-time. Conspicuous among the mountains is the wondrous cone-shaped Croagh Patrick, towering in an almost perpendicular mass on the southern shore, above the ruined abbey of Murrisk. From the top of it St. Patrick, according to popular legend, expelled the serpents for ever from Ireland, and it is regarded as a specially holy place by the people, who in great numbers make an annual pilgrimage to the top.
Many are the islands which dot the surface of the bay, some large, some very minute. There are said to be no less than three hundred and sixty-five of them, one for every day in the year, and if one looks upon the wondrous archipelago from a neighbouring height, they can well believe the number to be not much exaggerated. The little town of Westport is the only place of any importance on the bay, the terminus of the railway from Dublin, a spot which has seen better days, its large empty warehouses on the quay telling the sad tale of long-departed commerce.
Gorgeous are the sunsets to be seen in summer over this bay; and a conspicuous object, as the sun sinks into his “watery bed” in the Atlantic, bringing a new day to our brethren beyond the seas, is the great Clare Island, which forms a sort of natural breakwater at the entrance of the bay, restraining the full sweep of the great Atlantic rollers. Deep purple look the mountains and cliffs of the island as the sun sinks lower and lower, and the bare rugged cliffs and smaller adjacent islands seem transformed as if by magic, until they almost appear to be the Laureate’s
“Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea.”
This rugged island in the sixteenth century was the home of a very remarkable woman, who may not unfitly be called a “Princess of Thule”—one very different indeed from Mr. Black’s charming heroine, cast in a much sterner and rougher mould—but a princess, nevertheless, and one undoubtedly from “Ultima Thule.”
Here lived and died the celebrated Grana Uaile, whose name in its Anglicised form we know as Grace O’Maley. She was the daughter of Breanhaun Crone O’Maille, or O’Maley, the Chief of Murrisk and of the Isles of O’Maley, of which Clare was the most important. The O’Maleys were a powerful clan, and had fought bravely in many of the local struggles. Breanhaun O’Maley died when his daughter had just grown to womanhood, leaving behind him a son, who was quite a child, and the one daughter, Grace. The laws of succession were not firmly established in those days and in that part of Ireland, and the strong-minded woman found little difficulty in setting aside the claim of the boy, and establishing herself as Chieftainess of the clan or sept of O’Maley. She soon gathered together a number of followers, who were ready to support this dauntless woman in those very unsettled days for Ireland, when the Virgin Queen sat upon the throne of England.
Quickly she became famous as the head of a powerful clan, and as a leader of rare courage and intrepidity. The Lord Deputy Sidney, writing of her in 1576, says, “O’Maley is powerful in galleys and seamen.” It is not curious that the matrimonial affairs of this remarkable woman were somewhat peculiar. She was twice married. First, to one of the O’Flahertys of Connemara. They were a powerful clan in the county of Galway, and had a stronghold called Krishlane-na-Kirca, or the Hens’ Castle, on the shores of Lough Corrib, the remains of which are still to be seen. The O’Flahertys were a wild and turbulent race in those days, the terror of the merchants of the then prosperous city of Galway, who commonly inserted in the prayers in their churches a petition to be delivered “from the ferocious O’Flahertys.” On his death she married Sir William Burke, a man of English race, who, however, had cast off allegiance to the English Crown, and was better known as the MacWilliam Eighter. It was a curious union, as Grana Uaile would only agree to it “for a year certain.” At the end of that period she disowned him, but did not attempt to contract any further alliance. She sided, however, with Sir Richard Bingham against these Bourkes, and they were defeated in a battle, a result largely achieved by the followers of Grana Uaile.
As a return for this timely aid, Queen Elizabeth invited this western princess to pay her a visit in London. The invitation was accepted by her, and she set sail from her castle in Clare Island for Chester, the usual port of arrival from Ireland in those days. Before reaching Chester she gave birth to a son, the only child of her curious second marriage, and named him Tobaduah-na-Lung, or Toby of the Ship. From Chester she proceeded to London, to her interview with Elizabeth. The Queen was at that time residing at Hampton Court, and thither Grace made her way. It must have been a curious scene, the meeting of these two women. The haughty Tudor Queen, and the wild, half-savage Chieftainess of the far West. The contrast in their dress, too, must have been very striking. We are all familiar with the pictures of the great Queen of England, adorned with her enormous ruff and elaborate dresses; it certainly must have looked curious beside Grace O’Maley, who, we are told, was attired in “thirty yards of yellow linen, and a mantle of red frieze”! Grana was little ready to fall into the subservient ways of courtiers. She shook hands with Elizabeth, and treated her in every way as an equal, regarding herself (and rightly enough, too) as an independent princess. The offer of a lap-dog the head of the sept of O’Maley rejected with scorn. Afterwards Elizabeth offered to create her a countess, but this honour she declined, on the ground that she was the head of her own people; but was willing that a dignity should be bestowed on her infant son.
Many have been the strange visitors received by English monarchs, but few more curious scenes have been witnessed than the reception of Grana Uaile by Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court.
On the voyage home from England a very striking and romantic incident occurred, which gives some idea of the state of society in those days (it was 1575), and of the character of the Princess of Clare Island. On leaving the English coast severe weather was encountered, and instead of sailing at once north-west for her island home, Grana was driven across the Channel to the coast of the county Dublin. On the northern shore of the beautiful Dublin Bay the peninsula of Howth runs out into the sea, at the extremity of which was in ancient times a fortress often used by the Northmen, whose name for the promontory, Hoved, or head, has been corrupted into Howth. The Hill of Howth, as it is called, came into the possession of the family of St. Lawrence in the early times after the English conquest of Ireland; or rather its partial conquest, for it was not until after the reign of Elizabeth that the English authority was anything more than nominal, except along the eastern coast, in the part known as the English pale. The family of St. Lawrence were Barons (now Earls) of Howth, and had built their castle on the north-western slope of the hill, facing the mainland, and close to the isthmus which unites the hill to the main part of the county of Dublin. To the shelter afforded by the Hill of Howth, Grana Uaile and her ships were driven. She sought hospitality at the Castle, but on reaching it found the gates closed. The family were at dinner. Full of anger at this, she turned again to her ships, and on the way she chanced to find the heir of the St. Lawrences, then a little child, playing by the seashore. Here was a chance of revenge for the insult she had met with, and one which Grana would not be slow to avail herself of. The boy was captured by her retainers, placed on board her ship, and with this precious booty she made haste to reach her island home.
Great, we may well believe, was the anger and consternation of the family to find themselves robbed of their son and heir. There was not much use in appealing to the English Government, for the Queen’s writ could hardly be said to “run” in Western Mayo in the days of Elizabeth, any more than it sometimes does now in Kerry or Galway, so recourse had to be had to negotiation. After a considerable delay, Grana consented to release her captive, and this curious condition was attached to a substantial sum of money paid as ransom:—Whenever the family went to dinner, the gates of the Castle were to be thrown wide open, and a place was to be laid for one more guest than was expected! In making this provision, she clearly intended that no subsequent wayfarer should go hungry or empty away from Howth Castle. This curious custom was, I believe, continued in the family down to quite recent times.
This was the last striking exploit of Grana Uaile. She lived on in her island home, and died there at last, and was buried on the island, in the ancient Carmelite Abbey founded in 1224, the ruins of which are still to be seen, as well as the island fortress of this remarkable woman. A good many years ago a skull, which local tradition represented as hers, used to be shown to the rare tourists who visited Clare Island, but it is said to have disappeared.
Those whose summer wanderings lead them to the remote parts of the West of Ireland, and who do not mind, if need be, a good tossing on an often rough sea, might well spend a pleasant day in visiting Clare Island, and seeing for themselves the ruins of the Castle where our “Princess of Thule” lived and died in the days of “Good Queen Bess.”
