The connection with Grace O’Malley and her son Tiboid-ne-Long Bourke to this part of the barony of Carra, so far removed from their traditional stomping ground around Clew Bay, over the centuries became part of the folklore of the area.
During the course of my research for their biographies, however, the factual evidence manifested itself and proved even more enthralling than the folklore. Among the collection of 16th and 17th century manuscripts in Westport House, to which I was given access by the late Jeremy, Lord Sligo (a descendant of Tiboid-ne-Long), the reasons for this unlikely connection of the ‘Pirate Queen’ and her son with this inland area of county Mayo for centuries lay hidden in these centuries-old parchment relics.
In 1566 Grace O’Malley, by then established as ‘the most famous feminine sea captain’ and leader of a private army by land and sea, married Richard-in-Iron Bourke, chieftain of the Barony of Burrishoole, on the northern shore of Clew Bay. In the mould of the typical Gaelic warrior of the period given to inter-tribal feuding, Richard was powerful, well-connected, wealthy, if impetuous. Owner of the castles of Burrishoole, Newport and Rockfleet, his lands also held iron mines, from which he derived his sobriquet ‘in-Iron’.
Tradition holds that Grace married Richard on her own terms, opting for a trial marriage for a period of one year, then allowable under Brehon law, after which time either party were free to withdraw from the arrangement. Tradition also maintains that when the marriage reached the deadline and with Grace, her army and navy safely installed at Rockfleet Castle, locking the castle entrance, she invoked the words of divorce ‘Richard Bourke I dismiss you’ taking his castle in lieu of her dowry. Their divorce, however, was a temporary aberration as Grace and Richard featured together as a powerful force in Connaught for almost twenty years. That she was the dominant partner in the marriage is evident from the many references to them I found in the English State Papers of the period and as the English Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, noted of his meeting with them in Galway in 1577 ‘she brought with her her husband for she was as well by sea as by land well more than Mrs Mate with him’.
In 1567, their only son Theobald, known in Irish and English records as ‘Tibbott-ne-Long (Toby of the Ships) was born aboard his mother’s galley. It is also recorded that on the day after his birth her galley was attacked by Algerian pirates. As her men lost heart Grace emerged from nursing her new-born son and rallied them to victory.
A sixteenth century poem refers to this youngest son of the Pirate Queen:
Tiboid a Burc of the valiant feats
Of the hawklike blue eye…
A warrior whose curving neck
With ringleted golden-yellow hair
Is secretly loved by girls in every region
He is the ruddy-cheeked heir of Grainne.
In the 16th century the MacWilliam of Mayo was the most powerful chieftain in the county and second only in Connaught to Clanrickard of Galway. Richard-in-Iron, was the elected tanaiste by Gaelic law to succeed to the title. In 1580, however, when the sitting MacWilliam, who had agreed to rule his lordship by right of English rather than Gaelic law, died, his son claimed the title and lands. Combining their forces, numbering as was recorded ‘1,200 gallowglass, 300 kerne and 200 horsemen’ Richard with his wife’s help forced the English Governor of Connaught to acknowledge his right to the MacWilliamship. Preserved among the Westport House manuscripts the letters patent from the English crown conferred this formerly ‘banned’ Gaelic title on a former ‘rebel’ chieftain, albeit with an English title, making Grace O’Malley the ‘Lady MacWilliam’. Richard was, however, subsequently created the MacWilliam of Mayo by Gaelic custom at the traditional inauguration site at the ancient rath of Rausakeera near Kilmaine.
On his accession to the MacWilliamship Richard became the overlord of the extensive lands and castle pertaining to the office, including Lough Mask Castle with 3,000 acres, Ballinrobe Castle with 1,000 acres and Kinlough near Shrule with 2,500 acres, together with demesne lands scattered over the baronies of Carra and Kilmaine, in addition to the customary tributes and dues from the chieftains of Mayo.
Their new home in Lough Mask Castle resulted in their son, Tibbott-ne-Long’s association with Ballintubber Abbey. Then aged twelve Tibbott was placed in fosterage with the local chieftain, Myles MacEvilly, owner of Kinturk, Kilboynell (later re-named Castle Bourke), Castlecarra and Manulla castles and adjoining lands. Gaelic fosterage commanded extreme degrees of loyalty and indebtedness and in a document in Westport House dated 1582, MacEvilly ‘chief of his name’ granted ‘to the use of my foster son Thibbott Bourk the castle and bawn and ten quarters of land in Kinturk…the castle, bawn and eight quarters of land of Castlecarry and the four quarters of land of Ballykelly…the castle town and barbican and four quarters of lands of Moynulla…together with all messuages buildings, orchards, gardynes, moores, meddows, feeding pastures woods and underwoods, watter courses, fishinges, emollements and other hereditaments… in consideration of a certaine sum of money’.
At first, like his mother, Tibbott became an active leader against the military take-over of Connaught, especially against the actions of Sir Richard Bingham, English Governor of Connaught from 1584 to 1595. When Bingham captured and imprisoned him in 1592 on a charge of treason for collaborating with the rebel chief Brian O’Rourke in Breffni, it led to the famous meeting in 1593 of his mother and Queen Elizabeth 1 at Greenwich palace and his subsequent pardon and release. Following his mother’s death Tibbott took command of her fleet of galleys.
Over the succeeding years of his life Tibbott left his home territory in Burrishoole to reside permanently in Kinturk Castle and over the years purchased other MacEvilly property in the area, including Castlebourke, to become the largest landowner in Mayo.
As the outmoded native Gaelic world sought to survive takeover by England, inheriting his mother’s maritime skills and political ingenuity, Tibbott-ne Long emerged as a bold, ambitious and pragmatic leader. Enduring imprisonment, torture, famine and dispossession, earning the suspicion of both sides in the complex struggle for power and control in Ireland, resorting to double-dealing, chicanery, even murder, he negotiated his way through the military and political morass in an all-consuming passion to survive and secure his family’s future. At the decisive Battle of Kinsale (1601) because of a longstanding feud with one of the Gaelic leaders, Red Hugh O’Donnell who sought to undermine his position in Mayo, to retain his position and lands, Tibbott fought on the English side.
And in the decades after Kinsale in the new war waged over ownership of the land of Ireland, fought with weapons of parchment and ink, spurious claims and faulty deeds, in this legal minefield Tibbott emerged triumphant as the only Gaelic chieftain to substantially increase his patrimony. His success is even more extraordinary being achieved against the concerted efforts of English planters who tried to dispossess him while also retaining the loyalty and support of his Irish clansmen and followers in the barony of Carra and in Murrisk and Burrishoole.
Despite being under constant suspicion for the remainder of his life as to his loyalty to the English Crown, being often accused (and with good reason) of intrigue with Spain and with the exiled Gaelic lords, enduring imprisonment with his son and heir Myles in Dublin Castle in 1625, Tibbott was accorded the title ‘Viscount Mayo’ by King Charles 1 in 1627.
Tibbott-ne-Long died at Kinturk Castle on 18 June 1629 aged 62 and was succeed by his eldest son Myles as second Viscount Mayo. He lies buried with many of his descendants in Ballintubber Abbey in the impressive tomb in the sacristy. In 1635 his widow, Maud O’Connor Sligo, commissioned a chalice in memory of her husband now in the keeping of the Abbey.
The title ‘Viscount Mayo’ was deemed extinct (incorrectly) by Crown authorities on the death, without a male heir, in 1787 of the 8th Viscount.
© Anne Chambers 2025
