Someone really needs to write a short play about the meeting between Gráinne Ní Mháille and Elizabeth I. In 1593 at Greenwich Palace.

Ní Mháille - the pirate Queen -spoke no English. Elizabeth spoke no Irish. So they spoke Latin.

Mainly we know about it from English sources. 1/

One source tells us Gráinne was found with a dagger concealed on her person. She explained it was for her own protection. Elizabeth accepted this, unconcerned.

Another tells us Gráinne sneezed, was given a lace handkerchief by a lady in waiting, and threw it into the fire. 2/

This caused astonishment, so she explained in Ireland used hankies were considered soiled and destroyed.

She’d sailed to London to seek her family’s return. They’d been seized by Sir Richard Bingham, who called her ‘nurse to all rebellions in the province for this 40 years’.
3/

He had a point. But his time as Lord President (governor) of Connaught was controversial. And makes for wonderful reading. There’s a rebel lord, William Burke, known as the Blind Abbott - serious Game of Thrones stuff.

Elizabeth agrees to withdraw Bingham; they part.
4/

Naturally, in the 16th c. no one kept their word v long, so Elizabeth soon sent Bingham back, and Gráinne went back to being a rebel pirate queen. And earning songs being sung about her.

She has two husbands, and a shipwrecked sailor lover.

The two women both die in 1603.

Ends