I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this, just that I expected more. This ''book'' is more a paper than anything else, and it doesn't even focus that much on Grace O'Malley. Instead, it talks a lot about what happened in Ireland during Grace's lifetime, and what happened to the men in her life, rather than what happened in her life.

Of course, as is stated in the beginning of the book, there isn't that much historical material to build on. It might have been at one time, but Christianity and the patriarchy would have done their best to burn away any hint of a woman like Grace. The fact that she was a Pirate Queen of Ireland, and not the Caribbean, also makes it harder to find information about her, as pirates around Great Britain was all but legal, unlike their cousins further south.

That said, I was disappointed at how little focus there was on Grace, and that the author didn't even consider or explore the possibilitets of her life. Instead, they treated Grace like the British would, instead of the Irish, as there was a great difference in how the two cultures viewed their women.

I'm just disappointed, I think. But it did make me a bit more curious about Grace, and I might tryt of ind more books about her in the future.