title: The Pirate Queen: The Story of Grace O'Malley, Irish Pirate
author:  Alan Gold 
description: Gold celebrates the bravura of "a woman in a man's world" with his swashbuckling second novel (after <i>Warrior Queen</i>) about a 16th-century Irish buccaneer as gorgeous as she was dauntless. Set against the backdrop of Ireland and England from 1544 to 1588, the novel tracks Grace O'Malley's career from girlhood to middle age, with the occasional chapter cutting away to Queen Elizabeth I, an equally red-haired, resourceful and outspoken heroine. The daughter of a chieftain and merchantmancumpirate, Grace takes up her father's trade and commands a merchant fleet by age 30. An astute trader, ruthless pirate and Irish patriot, she plunders the ships of the Dutch, French, Spanish and Turksand with particular relish stymies the oppressive English. She also achieves two marriages, four children and many amorous liaisons. Grace's story meets Queen Elizabeth's toward the novel's end, when the English kidnap Grace's youngest son. The Irishwoman courageously calls on the queen to ask for her son's return, and the two kindred spirits spend a remarkable night together of shared confidences and political wheeling and dealing. This fantastical yarn will satisfy readers looking to root for a strong woman with a sharp sword and even more pointed tongue. <i>(Jan.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  # The Queen of the Pirate Isle
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Bret Harte
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
      
      
      
  
  
  This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
  
  
  I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of
  
  
  my recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was
  
  
  only nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor, deprecated
  
  
  violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did
  
  
  NOT live in an island and that her name was Polly?
  
  
  Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other
  
  
  experiences of a purely imaginative character. Part of her existence
  
  
  had been passed as a Beggar Child,—solely indicated by a shawl
  
  
  tightly folded round her shoulders, and chills; as a Schoolmistress,
  
  
  unnecessarily severe; as a Preacher, singularly personal in his
  
  
  remarks, and once, after reading one of Cooper's novels, as an Indian
  
  
  Maid