by Anne Clarke. The story of one remarkable woman’s quest for survival and fulfilment, by land and by sea, in a time of profound political upheaval and male chauvinistic bias. Grace O’Malley was the original trail-blazer and mould-breaker. ‘There came to me also a most famous feminine sea called Granny Imallye … with three galleys and two hundred fighting men … She brought with her her husband for she was as well by sea as by land well more than Mrs Mate with him. This was a notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland …’ Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, 1576 Fearless leader by land and by sea, political pragmatist and tactician, rebel, pirate and matriarch, the ‘most notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland’ Grace O’Malley challenges and manipulates the turbulent politics of the 16th century — a period of immense social change and political upheaval. Breaching boundaries of gender imbalance and bias, she re-wrote the rules to become one of the world’s documented feminist trail-blazers.