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The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea, by Barbara Sjoholm
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The Pirate Queen begins in Ireland with the infamous Grace O’Malley, a ruthless pirate and scourge to the most powerful fleets of sixteenth-century Europe. This Irish clan chieftain, sea captain, and pirate queen was a contemporary of Elizabeth I, a figure whose life is the stuff of myth. Regularly raiding English ships caught off Ireland’s west coast, O’Malley was purported to have fought the Spanish armada just hours after giving birth to her son. She had several husbands in her lifetime, and acquired lands and castles that still dot the Irish coastline today.But Grace O’Malley was not alone. Since ancient times, women have rowed and sailed, commanded and fished, built boats and owned fleets. As pirate, captain’s wives, lighthouse keepers and sailors in disguise they’ve explored coastlines and set off alone across unknown seas. Yet their incredible contributions have been nearly erased from the history books. In The Pirate Queen, Barbara Sjoholm brings some of these extraordinary women back to life, taking the reader on an unforgettable journey from the wild Irish coast to the haunting Scandinavian fjords in this meticulously researched, colorfully written, and truly original work
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Product details
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Seal Press (June 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 158005109X
ISBN-13: 978-1580051095
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.1 out of 5 stars
11 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#2,097,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I do confess - Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley was really the primary draw for me in this book - based on the jacket, I thought it was more of an in depth book, like Richard Zacks' excellent tome on Captain Kidd ("The Pirate Hunter").What I got, instead - was a single chapter about Grace O'Malley and lots of references to people who apparently know more about and wrote more about her -- and a travelogue covering different roles women played in different communities in the north/west of European coastal communities. And a lot of personal reflections and musings on love for the sea and reinventing oneself.Yes - it was confusing for a few chapters - a bit of a bait and switch. But, some of what she wrote was interesting. Some of what she wrote was silly - but not as silly as some of Bill Bryson's travel stuff and personal reflections. Interesting but not necessarily a reflection of much primary source research -- more of a hobby/personal book.
I have to admit, I was quite disappointed with this book. I had just completed reading THE ONLY LIFE THAT MATTERED: The Short and Mery Lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Calico Jack Rackam. It was about two female pirates who actually lived and breathed and chased cargo in the Caribbean. It was exciting, fast paced and well written. I was looking for another such book in THE PIRATE QUEEN.The Only Life That Mattered: The Short and Merry Lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack Rackam.I was sadly disappointed. I had anticipated a good read about the brave women of the North Seas. Nope, no such luck. Barbara Sjoholm actually began life as Barbara Winston and somehow her quest for daring women of the North Seas broke down into her own personal chase after "the correct and fitting last name for herself." She felt herself a kindred spirit to the sea and as she went from cold port to cold, rainy port, to cold, rainy isolated port in the Northern reaches of our globe, she seemed really to be on a personal quest to find a last name that was correct for her. I think she did well with Sjoholm. It is unpronouceable, reeks of Northern isolation and frankly, looks cold. She spent so much time describing rainy, blustery, windy, drizzly, drenching, beautiful black lava rinsed in water that I had to wear two sweaters while I read her book. But onward.Initially, I thought things would go well with this book. She started in Ireland and discussed Grace O'Malley who seemed to be a sister to her Carribean friends in THE ONLY LIFE THAT MATTERED. She sailed as a youngster and learned the tricks of the sea. Also, she learned to wheedle and steal and fight and was the only real Pirate discussed in this book. She had a child in the midst of battle and all was going along well. But this progressed to a viewing of her statue which did not suit the author, to viewings and reviewings of her small castles. Then on to discussions of the names of islands that disappeared when the tide came in versus those that only half disappeared when the tide came in. Immediately, the author's weakness became apparent when she began trying to decide what her REAL LAST NAME SHOULD BE WHICH tied in with narratives about her mother's death. I do not mean that the author should have no feelings about her late mother; nor, that she should not change her last name, but the whole idea of searching for self while searching for LEGENDARY WOMEN OF THE SEA seems at odds with one another.And why was the author on this quest....either for Seafaring women or for a last name? The detail involved in the book...down to how long she had to wait for a rental agent to appear, to the derivation of English nouns from their middle age roots proved quite tedious for me. There was certainly no swashbuckling, but lots of little known facts of history of places I have barely heard of, and have little interest in, found their way into her book. I kept reading at many points because the discussions had made me SO COLD that it was the only way to stir up any warmth. A COLD BOOK about COLD PLACES...I am not a fan of cold. THere was ONE everongoing theme...at each new island or country...she reconsidered her name.I did learn a lot about the lasses who gutted fish in the early 20th century...while the Cod industry was at its height. I also learned that IF someone is going to put a statue up for a woman somewhere in this bleak Northland, it will be of a woman waving goodbye to her fisherman husband and he gets into a boat to enter ther perilous north waters to find food for the family or the industry. Freqently the reader was told that "women did not sail, row, motor etc. a boat, the men did. Women did the other things: tended to the children, the cooking, the livestock (which might include taking them from island to island for food), and THE OTHER THINGS that women do. This way of thinking seemed to prevail in the northern seas and was quite discouraging to one who wanted exciting Pirate tales.I believe it was in the cold, rainy, every changing cloudy weather of the Shetland Islands, that one hardy woman boarded a sailing vessel so that she might reach a port where she could sell some scarves she had knit. As fate would have it, the two crewmembers were killed by being knocked overboard on the first day at sea. The poor soul then spent about eight days drifting...she DID NOT try to handle the vessel she was on...existing on milk and a bit of food she brought on board for her lunch...until she finally arrived, I believe in Denmark. She had crossed the most perilous ocean currents in the world while huddled below. Not the stuff of great adventure to my mind, but we did hear about the child who found her and her subsequent hospital stay and then her return home...she never ventured on another boat!The author, still in search of her name, and supposedly, self, then sailed to Iceland. It sounded like a moderately cold climate with flatish hills, lots of lava formations, high cliffs, and no trees. She spent quite a bit of time here talking to an author who wrote a play about a brave seafaring woman, and she felt another play of similar type should be written about another sea lady. I was not clear on all the ends and outs of this tale. Part of it revolved arount a Faiytale about a roughhousing brother and sister who played too hard. The brother knocked the sister into the ocean where she found hand purchase on an icefloe and sailed with it to Greenland. Again theire was much description of the volcanic scenery and lovely thoughts about the mother nurturing qualities of the North Sea. I shiver to recall the details.Then on the Greenland where we encountered some tales of the Vikings and their journeys to the New World, but the Woman involved was a brute who planned the murder of those with whom she sailed. The author also touched on a woman in charge of an expedition that was leaving Greenland, led by a sane woman, which was to follow the original path of the Vikings to New Foundland. I KNOW that there is much information on the Vikings. Surely there were some brave women who stepped off the frozen Northlands and made a name for themselves as shipmasters or Pirates. Surely there were women who dressed as men and fought in Viking battles. However, the only other one we learned of was caught by a quick Prince who removed her from her fighting deck and took her to his castle, where I gather "she did the things that women do."We know because we have heard stories from other countries about other women who sailed ships, made a dent in their world, led armies, fought battles, dressed as men and helped to rule and change the world and their times. I had hoped to hear of these courageous ladies in this book. Well, at least one was described who left the Northern ilands dressed as a man who went to Canada to work...but she was NOT in the book because of her great deeds...she was there because she got pregnant and shocked some poor male who thought she was a man while she was in labor...hardly the stuff of legends and great deeds. I do not know if the author could find no exciting ladies who sailed the sea because they were not there, which I do not buy, or because the MEN she spoke with, did not care to discuss those parts of their history. Oh, she touched on a lady who left lucrative fishing grounds, came home, smoked a pipe and then birthed a son...but that is a fact not an adventure. No adventure burst forth from the pages of this book, though I think, perhaps, adventures were there for the telling. Just sailing in a one masted, one sail ship from Greenland to Nova Scotia HAD to entail adventures, especially if a murderous sister of Lief Erickson was on board. However, all was told in a flat informational tone that was very bland. The uniting theme from one place to the other was not adventurous women who wanted to rule the land, but was the author's discussion of whether she should shed Wilson as a last name, and if she did, should she take on an Irish name or a Swedish one...after all, her Swedish heritage loomed larger than her Irish one.Ah, I am half Irish and I love the way the locals roll the words out of their mouths. The old tales they tell of war lords, beautiful women, money, kidnappings, battles, rich men and ladies is enough to make the blood of the coldest NorthMan or NorthLady run hot and the blood within the rest of us boil and bubble in anticipation of old deeds done and new ones that await us. I know little of Swedes and their cold world, but I heard all I wanted to hear about cold, wet, rainy lands where no one strove for excellence or adventure. In light of the history of the author within the parameters of this book, it seems a cold Swedish name is best suited to the author. I learned quite a bit about words and what they meant; I learned much about the cold lands to the North and the men who settled them and lived there. I have yet to hear the hotblooded tales of undercover brave women who lived in these lands. At present, I could almost doubt their existence, but not quite. Hot blooded ladies with an iron fist in a velvet glove were in evidence everywhere else in the world. Surely there were some in the North. I think the author has not yet found them, OR has yet to present them correctly. BUT, I WOULD NOT read this book in search of dering do. Look elsewhere. This tome is dry as toast and, in my opinion, is a story about the author in search of her own internal self which she is asearching for without a good compass. Pass on this one. I would if I were you. (I Finally assigned this three stars because of the plethora of dry factoids which may be useful along the way)
This book really wasn't at all what I was expecting, or what the title would lead one to believe. The subtitle, "In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea," makes it sound as if this will be a biographical account of the life of Grace O'Malley, with supplemental information on other historical female seafarers. Not so. The first two chapters are devoted to the famous pirate queen herself, and Sjoholm only provides the skimpiest bits of information. I knew almost nothing about Grace O'Malley going into the book, and I know little more than that now. The other women included are discussed in even sparer detail, and most of them aren't even real historical figures, but legendary story characters and mythological creatures like mermaids. She even talks about Pippi Longstocking! Not what I was expecting at all..."The Pirate Queen" is actually devoted far more to Sjoholm's travels in search of information on female women of the sea than it is to the information itself. I learned more about Sjoholm and her own life than about the women she supposedly set out to study. She describes the inns she stayed at, the weather, the tourists she met, her own childhood, the abundance of "personal bath mats" in northern European hotels... almost everything but Grace O'Malley and her cohorts. In fact, the primary underlying theme in the book seems to be how the author came to the decision to change her last name from Wilson to Sjoholm; a story which, to be quite honest, I really couldn't care less about. I bought the book hoping to learn about interesting historical figures. It turned out to be a travel memoir, and a comparatively uninteresting one at that.This is a shame, really. Sjoholm includes just enough information on the various historical women she mentions - Grace O'Malley herself, Bessie Millie, Janet Forsyth, Christian Robertson, Eliza Fraser, Isobel Gunn, Betty Mouat, Freydis Eiriksdottir, Skipper Thuridur, Trouser-Beret, Alfhild, the "herring lassies," and numerous mythological characters - to whet my appetite, but then fails to deliver a full, satisfying portrait of any of them. She raises more questions than she answers, and I'd need to buy numerous additional books to find all the missing information. You may also notice, given the names, that nearly all the women mentioned are northern European in origin. Sjoholm entirely omits women seafarers active in other parts of the world, such as the famous pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read who, though from Europe, sailed the Caribbean.As for Sjoholm's writing style, the book is an easy read, but not a very enjoyable one. Sjoholm's writing is given to an abundance of nearly nauseating metaphors. For example: "The lava fields looked like vanilla cake batter poured over thick jumbles of dates, walnuts, and chocolate chips. In the sun the moss could also look like lemon yogurt spooned generously over granola" (pg. 222). Flowery, gratuitous, and often ridiculous images like this are to be found in almost every paragraph... peppered throughout the book like poppyseeds in a muffin, you might say... It's not the worst book I've ever read, but I do wish I'd spent my money on something else. It doesn't deliver what it promises, and there are plenty of more interesting and informative books out there to pick up instead.
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