Living through one of the most exciting, for Ireland one of the most traumatic, epochs of history, from 1530-1603, Grace O'Malley saw and did it all. Her story is that of one woman's quest for survival and fulfilment in a time of profound political upheaval and chauvinistic bias.

She was a fearless leader by land and sea; a commander of a private army; an accomplished seafarer, captain of a fleet of ships, which she operated along the treacherous Atlantic coastline; a political pragmatist and tactician, a ruthless plunderer and negotiator with such machiavellian Elizabethan statesmen as Lord Burghley, Sir John Perrott, Sir Henry Sidney, Sir Richard Bingham and finally with Queen Elizabeth 1 of England.

She lead rebellions against individual English military men who sought to curb her power, yet she allied with the Queen of England when it was to her advantage, boldly sailing up the Thames to negotiate with Elizabeth 1 in 1593. She attacked her own son when he sided with her enemy, trained another so well in the art of survival that he fought on the winning English side at the Battle of Kinsale.

Throughout her life Grace refused let social or religious convention deter her ambition. She ruthlessly avenged the murders of her husband and of her lover, divorced her second husband, gave birth to her youngest son on board her ship as it was being attacked by North African pirates. She kidnapped the grandson of an Earl when he refused her the hospitality of his castle. Her ransom was that he and his descendants would forever lay an extra place at his dinner table for the unexpected arrival, a demand that is still fulfilled to this day.

'What the facts reveal is an original an unique mould-breaker, a woman more liberated and empowered than any in this age of perceived equality. Four hundred years later she continues to challenge our predisposed sense of convention and rips apart the shallow boundaries which society tended to impose on women's expectations and abilities. What fascinates me most about her is that she competed and succeeded within the male-dominated environment in which she operated without jettisoning her femininity - the exemplification of a true feminist.'

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