The Wild Irish Quotes

“It is important to understand this period of Irish rebellion, not least because of the light it throws on events in Ireland ever since. England persists in occupying and claiming dominion over Irish soil, and the Catholics of Ulster continue to resist. It may seem that the policies of Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth are quaint echoes of the past, but the spirit of courage and defiance that animated rebels such as Hugh O’Neill and Grace O’Malley still lives in countless Irish hearts today.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“During the writing of this book, I found myself questioning why the sixteenth-century history of the Irish-English conflict—“the Mother of All the Irish Rebellions”—has been utterly ignored or forgotten. This episode was by far the largest of Elizabeth’s wars and the last significant effort of her reign. It was also the most costly in English lives lost, both common and noble. By some estimates, the rebellion resulted in half the population of Ireland dying through battle, famine, and disease, and the countryside—through the burning of forestland—was changed forever. Yet almost no one studies it, writes of it, or discusses it, even as the impact of that revolt continues to make headlines across the world more than four hundred years later. Likewise, few people outside Ireland have ever heard of Grace O’Malley, surely one of the most outrageous and extraordinary personalities of her century—at least as fascinating a character as her contemporary and sparring partner Elizabeth I. Of course history is written by the victors, and England was, by all accounts, the winner of the Irish Rebellion of the sixteenth century. But the mystery only deepens when we learn that the only contemporary knowledge we have of Grace’s exploits—other than through Irish tradition and legend—is recorded not in Ireland’s histories, but by numerous references and documentation in England’s Calendar of State Papers, as well as numerous official dispatches sent by English captains and governors such as Lords Sidney, Maltby, and Bingham. As hard as it is to believe, Grace O’Malley’s name never once appears in the most important Irish history of the day, The Annals of the Four Masters. Even in the two best modern books on the Irish Rebellion—Cyril Fall’s Elizabeth’s Irish Wars and Richard Berleth’s The Twilight Lords—there is virtually no mention made of her. Tibbot Burke receives only slightly better treatment. Why is this? Anne Chambers, author of my two “bibles” on the lives of Grace O’Malley (Granuaile: The Life and Times of Grace O’Malley) and Tibbot Burke (Chieftain to Knight)—the only existing biographies of mother and son—suggests that as for the early historians, they might have had so little regard for women in general that Grace’s exclusion would be expected. As for the modern historians, it is troubling that in their otherwise highly detailed books, the authors should ignore such a major player in the history of the period. It”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“The last days of GRACE O’MALLEY’S life are a mystery. There are records of her ships—if not personally captained by her—still patrolling the western Irish coast in mid 1601. She seems to have lived at Rockfleet Castle near the end, and probably died at the age of seventy-three, in 1603—the same year as Elizabeth’s death. Some of her stark, brooding castles and ruined abbeys on the shores and islands of Clew Bay today stand testament to her life, though the whereabouts of her earthly remains are still in dispute. While her ending is shrouded in the mists of time, there’s nothing to suggest that Grace O’Malley would have gone gently into that good night. One can imagine that, like Elizabeth, she’d have stood her ground till the Reaper paid his final, insistent call. But thanks to Ireland’s balladeers and bards and a handful of Englishmen awed by so remarkable a woman, her last voyage was not into oblivion, but the pages of history and the rich fabric of Irish legend.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“ELIZABETH I, the queen who many believed waited in vain for Essex to beg a reprieve from his death sentence, suffered agonies after his passing. Despite the victory at Kinsale and achieving her goal of defeating the Irish rebels, she never regained her seemingly inexhaustible zest for life. As the end neared, the queen, despite her obvious weakness, refused to be put to bed and instead stood upright in one place for fourteen hours, sucking on her fingers. She died on March 24, 1603, never having named her successor. She had reigned for more than four decades, and with her died the great Tudor dynasty of a hundred years.   The”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“TIBBOT NE LONG BURKE, hard-pressed to choose sides in the Irish rebellion, finally made his decision at the battle of Kinsale. On his own volition he mustered a force of three hundred men and marched south. Under Lord Mountjoy, Tibbot led his men so single-mindedly and courageously that he was lauded by the Crown. Having proven his loyalty beyond any doubt, he returned home to a life of leisure with Maeve and his six children. Miles—for many years a hostage—was released by his English captors and went to live with his family. Like Conyers Clifford before him, Mountjoy befriended Tibbot, took sides with him against a new and unpopular governor of Connaught, and made sure his salary was regularly paid. Tibbot was knighted in the early days of James’s reign and elected to the Irish Parliament as a representative of Mayo in 1613. In 1626, by virtue of his valor and faithful service to King Charles I, he was created Viscount Burke of Mayo. He died, age sixty-two, murdered by an O’Connor brother-in-law while the two were on their way to church.   R”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“Tyrone, after wandering with his family through France, the Netherlands, and Germany, finally took up residence in Italy, subsidized by the Pope. Every night, deep in his cups, he would brag that come Hell or high water he would die in Ireland. In 1616 the great rebel O’Neill passed away, a frustrated exile, in Venice.   T”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“O’Neill and his army marched south from Ulster to meet the enemy while his ally Red Hugh O’Donnell marched in from the west. But once the Irish armies were in place, O’Neill and O’Donnell began arguing as to which of them should begin the attack. This delay proved fatal as the agreed upon hour of rendezvous with the Spaniards passed, and the window of opportunity for an Irish victory slammed shut. The Battle of Kinsale lasted three months, and in the end O’Neill was unable to defeat Mountjoy’s siege lines. Finally the Spanish troops surrendered to the English and sailed home. Thousands of Irish rebels died in the fighting or, taken prisoner, were hung. Hugh O’Neill was forced to submit to the English conquerors in a series of humiliating ceremonies, first on his knees to Mountjoy, then to the Lord Deputy and the Irish Privy Council. It was only after he’d put his submission in writing, renouncing his title of “The O’Neill and his allegiance to Spain, as well as protesting loyalty to the Crown, was he told that Elizabeth had died six days before. Mountjoy had tricked him. It was said that O’Neill wept openly and copiously for both his personal defeat and the ruination of the “Irish cause.” The rebel leader retreated to Ulster, and by the good graces of the new king of England, was pardoned once again, and his lands restored to him. He took up residency in his luxurious home, but spurred by a series of dangerous events and the realization that no hope was left for a free Ireland, O’Neill and a handful of Irish overlords and their families sailed from their homeland in 1607. The tragic “Flight of the Earls” ended the most tumultuous century in Ireland’s history. Tyrone,”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“Now the harpist and bard had taken their places under the roof of the three-sided booley house, and guests were wandering from the table to hear them play and sing.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“When they’d crested the final hill, the huge gathering of clans spread out below, she’d turned to him. “This is what we call a ‘booley’—summer grazing for our cattle.” “But there’s a house,” he said, perplexed. “Well, of course there is—a booley house. Where else would the people sleep—amongst the herd?” Essex smiled, chastised. “You’ll just have to leave off your silly conception of the ‘wild Irish.’ Believe it or not, we are civilized, even at the booley. Did you know that back in the last millennium all the European monarchs for eight hundred years insisted on Irish councilors and clergy to advise them on matters of church and state, for of all men they were the best educated and most wise? Did you know that without the Irish monks slavin’ over their illuminated texts, all the great books of Roman civilization would have been lost to the barbarian hoards? No, I can see that you didn’t.” A”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“news arrived several days later of the appalling defeat of Elizabeth’s army by the Irish rebels at Blackwater Fort—a defeat now infamously known as the Battle of the Yellow Ford. The Earl of Tyrone—indeed he had taken the title of The O’Neill—was being hailed as the King of Ireland, and he had quickly and with frightening ease begun bringing all of that blighted country under his control. His armies—unbelievable that they could be called armies at all—had streamed south into Leinster and Munster, overrunning the Pale and the plantations till there was hardly an English settler left in Ireland who was not dead or running for his life. All over the country the Crown’s armies, foolishly packed with Irish recruits, soon found those soldiers turning coat and defecting to the other side, most of them carrying with them their English weapons. The shock and horror of The Yellow Ford had, in one afternoon, seen Henry Bagenal and two thousand of his men slaughtered, and brought England to its knees. ’Twas unthinkable, but Ireland was on the brink of being lost to a pack of ragged rebels! Elizabeth, humiliated and furious, had raged at her council to do something.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“Bagenal stood gaping as shot whizzed by his head. It was his brother-in-law, the traitor Tyrone. And the man had spotted him as well. Fury rose in Henry Bagenal and he strode out into the field to meet the bloody Irish devil. He and Tyrone would fight hand to hand, to the death, he swore to himself. He would have his revenge for Mabel, beautiful child, lost to this wretched land.   THE BALL FROM the musket of the proud Ulster marksman found the very center of Captain Bagenal’s forehead and blew out the back of the Englishman’s skull. Hugh O’Neill saw his brother-in-law fall, and though a great, joyful cry rose in his throat he never missed a step, leading his pikemen onward. But he found himself smiling as he marched, savoring the irony of the moment, for the ball that had smashed open Henry Bagenal’s head had been molded from the melted-down lead that old Lord Burleigh had foolishly sent for the roof of Mabel O’Neill’s proper English castle.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“O’Neill could feel rising off them devotion and love for him, and he knew they would lay down their lives for their high chieftain and for the new cause, only now taking shape in their heads. The cause. Unthinkable just a year before—freedom from occupation. Freedom from oppression. Indeed, their heinous oppressors were approaching—English soldiers who had slaughtered their brothers, their wives, their mothers. Their children. Soldiers who had mindlessly laid waste to their home provinces. To Ireland. Never before had these men fought for the whole of this ancient land, but now they understood, and their hearts—God bless their staunch hearts—were strong and ready to fight. Raising his sword high above his head, O’Neill, with slow deliberation, lowered it, and the glorious blue morning exploded into sound.   C”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“What’s more”—O’Neill’s eyes brimmed with tears—“they’ve a cause, Grace.” She placed her hand over his. “I know that, Hugh. ’Tis an ‘Irish cause,’ and we’ve never known that here before. There’s not another man in Ireland—in all the world—who could have rallied them, you know that’s true. A single country fighting a single enemy. I never thought I’d live to see the day. Not even Red Hugh could have done it.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“Grace rose from her chair and Elizabeth too came to her feet. “I thought your arse would be sore by now,” said Grace. “It is a bit.” “You have to be careful when you ask the Irish to tell you a story.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“So why submit? I know this as sure as I’m sittin’ here across the roast from you. They’re tryin’ to bury our law and eradicate our language. And once they take your name, they’ll take your freedom too.” “No one’s goin’ anywhere with my freedom. And don’t worry yourself, Owen. If I do accept myself a fine English title, I promise I won’t insist that you call me by it.” “That’s very kind of you, you feckin’ idiot.” Gilleduff laughed and punched my father in the shoulder. Owen laughed too. I myself was too young to know how right my father had been, or how the English army would one day, in the not so distant future, somehow make it across those impenetrable forests and bogs of Ireland, and smash our sea defenses, all in the name of murderin’ the old Gaelic order, our very way of life. But it was a warm summer night, and we were booleyin’, and the bard was settling down by the fire to begin his telling of histories and generations back through the mists of time. And we soon forgot about the English and their titles and their fears of the “Wild Irish” out beyond the Pale. By”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“I remember a fierce debate that my father and Gilleduff had one afternoon sittin’ over the roast at the long booley table. They were talkin’ of King Henry the Eighth’s “Surrender and Regrant” program, a topic of unrivaled possibility for disagreement—a rare bounty for two men who’d give their right arms for a good argument. “Most of the other chieftains in Connaught have succumbed already,” said Gilleduff, and Henry calls himself ‘King of Ireland.’” “King Henry is a buffoon,” Owen snapped. “He could’ve been a great man, comin’ as he did from good Welsh stock, but he’s so addled with women he has no time for important things.” “The way I see it,” Gilleduff said, “is that England—no matter how bloody or ignorant its king—will conquer Ireland in the end, for one reason and one reason alone.” “And what is that?” demanded my father. “Centralized government. Loyalty from all—or most—of the great lords of the land to one ruler. What have we got here? A hundred chieftains who think of themselves as the ‘High King’ of a valley, four hills, and a lake. And every one of ’em, ’cept you and me, are murderin’ and thievin’ and pillagin’ one another year after bloody year. We’ve weakened ourselves so miserably, it’s no wonder that when the chiefs are offered the English titles, they take ’em.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“And the Church’s views on marriage were nothin’ short of ridiculous. It had to be celebrated in public, and the marriage was permanent, for mercy’s sake. We preferred to do things more clandestinelike, for marriage, after all, is a personal affair. And after a year, if the man was not up to his wife’s standards, she could boot him out the door. Say, “I divorce you!” and he was gone, just like that. Canon law did agree with native law in one respect. It said that a woman could own property. Nice, you say. Sure, so the woman could leave her property to the Church! Hypocrisy, pure and simple. And the feckin’ clergy—they made whores of all women who would lay with a man she lusted after. What sense is there in that? Most”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“There were more serious days, when the Brehon judges would come round on their circuit of Connaught to hear the civil suits, and cases of crimes committed in my father’s territories. ’Twas our ancient Gaelic law that they practiced—the very one that the English and the Christian Church so abhorred and wished to destroy. They could never understand the leniency with which we punished our thieves and murderers. The English like to flog a man to ribbons, cut off his hands, his head, rip out his very bowels for such offenses. And the Spanish Inquisition with its insane tortures and burnin’ people alive—quite unfathomable. Under native Irish law we demanded a payment of compensation that was equal to the crime, and paid to the family by the criminal—punishment enough. Or he lost his civil rights, became what we called an outlaw. That was much more sensible, we thought, than common vengeance. And”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“Most congenial, the booleying life, though never as exciting as the sea. Sure”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“The summers were a sight better, for we moved—the lot of us—outdoors to my father’s booleys. These were makeshift structures, long and narrow, and thatched with rushes, built new each year and set in the midst of our upland pastures amongst our herds. Aye, we lived with our animals, somethin’ the English could never fathom. But it was a marvelous thing, livin’ so close to the land with the very beasts that were so great a source of our wealth. ’Twas very green and the weather soft, and the booley house smelled of fresh rushes. The women would spin and weave. And sometimes we’d hunt with our hounds, or hawk with our falcons. There”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“I whispered to my mother that if I were forced to marry the snot-nosed little thug, I’d do as Brigid of Kildare had done when pressed to marry—thrust her finger into her eye, pullin’ it from the socket till it dangled from her cheek. Marriage, I thought. Me, a married woman. Impossible! And wife of a chieftain at that, for the truth was, my intended was tanaist of the O’Flaherty clan. This meant that—as tradition dictated—when the current O’Flaherty chieftain died an election would be held by the septs for the title.”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley

“We Irish were alone, of all countries, in this way of choosing our leaders. Everywhere else in the world ’tis a firstborn son who’s heir to the title—in England, your primogeniture—and no questions asked. But tanaistry was how the Irish chiefs were made, and it had always served us well. Aside”
― Robin Maxwell, The Wild Irish: A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley