DISCLAIMER: Credit for the original fanfiction university that inspired this spinoff goes to Camilla Sandman (creator of the official fanfiction university of middle earth) and all her loyal followers. If you Google "OFUM" you will find her fanfiction university stories, which totally kick ass. Disney owns PotC and all the characters in it. All students of the University belong to themselves or to their creators and are used only by specific request.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: None of the textbooks listed as part of the OFUC curriculum are real, as far as I know. There are lots of great books about pirates out there, but I'm afraid it's up to you to find them- I've read a couple and forgotten their names, but I don't own any personally. I know Barnes & Noble has had several on display ever since the PotC movies came out. All of the text of the following chapter in Women At Sea was written by myself, based on information from various websites I've researched. It is all in my own words and copyright me. I do not grant permission for this to be copied or posted on any other website - if you want to post the link to this story, go ahead, but if this shows up on any other sites without my permission, I will not be happy.

So... I decided to spend an hour or so this afternoon researching Grace O'Malley and then all the sudden it was 8 PM and hours had gone by and dinner had been eaten without me and I'd written all this. The next couple chapters may still be slow in coming, as I remain extremely sick and my throat feels like I tried to swallow a sea urchin (yay, nautical metaphor!) and tomorrow I get to spend a lovely 7 hours at college and then come home and write a presentation that I get to present first thing Wednesday morning, if I haven't completely lost my voice by then. So wish me luck, and enjoy the history lesson. I hope you find it as inspiring and fascinating as I do.

Oh, and a bonus trivia fact for you all. Grace's first husband, Donal O'Flaherty, was nicknamed "Donal the Cock" for his bravery in battle. Her second husband, Richard Burke, was called "Iron Dick," for reasons history can only guess at. Being completely immature and perverted, I find this hilarious.

-Siren


Women At Sea- Chapter 1: Grace O'Malley, The Pirate Queen of the Irish Coast

Grace O'Malley was born in 1530, the daughter of an Irish chieftain. His clan dominated the Western coast of Ireland both on land and on sea, with several castles and a fleet of ships. Grace fell in love with the sea at a very early age, and as a child, spent as much of her time as possible at sea. When her disapproving mother decreed that she would stay at home and off ships as was fitting for a young girl, she cut off her long hair in protest, and her family started teasingly calling her "Gráinne Mhaol"- "Bald Grace,"a play on her Gaelic name, Gráinne ni Mhaille- a nickname which was later shortened to Granuaile, by which she was known by all her life. Her father eventually relented and she grew up sailing, fighting, and voyaging on his fleet. When she was fifteen, she was married off to Donal O'Flaherty, another Irish clan leader. It was a political marriage arranged by the two families, and it soon turned out that Donal was shiftless and irresponsible and had no idea how to take care of the lands he held. When it reached the point where the people in his territories were starving, Granuaile stepped in and made a few changes behind the scenes, unofficially taking on most of the management decisions. Though as a woman, she couldn't legally hold office, she basically took on her husband's duties as well as fulfilling her own duties as his wife by bearing him three children- two sons, Owen and Murrough, and a daughter, Margaret. Donal eventually got himself killed while fighting a rival clan, the Joyces, and despite the fact that he'd been pretty useless in life, Granuaile immediately avenged his death, attacking the Joyces and taking over their stronghold.

But the O'Flahertys ignored the fact that she'd just carried out an impressive military victory in their name and denied her any power over her husband's holdings. Though they didn't make her leave, if she had remained on their lands she would have been stripped of all the authority she had wielded as Donal's wife. So she took the kids, returned to her father's lands, cut her hair short again, and used the last of her funds to scrounge up a couple ships and hire 200 men who would be loyal to her alone. She won their respect with her intelligence and the fact that even after three kids, she was still as competent on a ship as any sea captain, and then she took them and set up a little business on the side. Since she had been left with neither money nor political power, she set up a base on Clare Island and used this strategically positioned headquarters to take command of all shipping in that part of the coast. She charged ships for safe passage, hired out navigators, and mercilessly raided any ships that wouldn't pay the toll. Eventually she took a Norseman who she'd rescued from a shipwreck as her lover, and when he was killed at Doona, she went after his killers and slaughtered them herself.

In 1566, at the age of thirty-six, she married a second time, to Richard-an-Iarainn Burke, her former husband's nephew. With this marriage, she gained control of all Clew Bay from his fortress, Rockfleet Castle, and was able to carry out large-scale raids on other clans and passing merchant ships. She still spent a great deal of time at sea, and even gave birth to Richard's son, "Toby of the Ships," in a ship's cabin a year after their marriage. The next day, the ship was attacked by Turkish pirates, and she got out of bed, grabbed her sword, and led the battle personally, loudly cursing her crew as she fought for not being able to manage without her for even one day.

The British, as you can imagine, were not too pleased with this. She was basically a full-fledged pirate by this time and wielded more political and strategic power than they were comfortable with. They sent a force against her, but she fought back and forced them to retreat. After that, she continued her raiding and pillaging as she had before—only now the British became her favorite targets. A few years later, political necessity forced her to pledge loyalty to the crown, but this was pretty much a token gesture as she didn't bother to change anything she was doing. Her only real tie to England was a friendship with the poet Sir Phillip Sidney, who she had a long-lasting correspondence with. The two exchanged letters for years, but the content of the letters is unknown, as none of the letters survived the ravages of time.

In 1577, Granuaile was imprisoned after she staged an attack on Limerick and held for 18 months. She arranged her release by convincing the British that she would betray Richard, who was in rebellion against the British governor of the province, Sir Richard Bingham. Upon being let out, she returned home and joined him in resisting British control, threatening any British tax collector who trespassed on her land with death. When Richard died, five years later, she remained at Rockfleet and continued the rebellion against English rule, using her fleet to transport soldiers and Scottish rebels who supported her cause. By then, Bingham's reign had escalated in brutality and everyone in the area was caught up in the conflict. In 1586, Bingham captured Granuaile, confiscated her posessions, and took control of her followers. Though Granuaile was released unharmed, her son, Owen, was murdered by his troops, and stripped of all her power on land, she returned to the sea, where she resumed her raiding in order to survive. Bingham hounded her incessantly, and several years later, Murrough sided with him against his own mother in order to maintain his own holdings on land. Granuaile was furious at his treachery, and swept down on his lands with her fleet, burning down his town, stealing his cattle, and killing several of his followers. In 1593, Bingham impounded her ships and arrested Granuaile's two surviving sons as well as her brother, Donell O'Piper. Granuaile wrote to the Queen of England, protesting this treatment and offering to end her raiding permanently and use her fleet to eliminate England's enemies if only she were granted an annual stipend to live on and as long as that bastard Bingham was made to give her her bloody ships back! Eventually, after a meeting with Her Majesty in person, the Queen ordered Bingham to do as she commanded. Though Bingham still hounded her, ordering a company of soldiers to follow her on all her voyages, he was fired two years later and it is believed that she returned to her old habits of raiding ships, though there is only a single report of her being caught doing so. The date and circumstances of her death are unknown, but as she reached her mid-to-late sixties, she returned to Rockfleet, where she lived when she was not at sea and most probably where she died.

Despite her growing lack of sleep, Abby stayed up late that night, walking to the beach to sit on the sand and watch the moonlight on the waves. Her head was filled with visions of ancient Ireland, of ships and battles and the wild laughter of the Pirate Queen. Why had she never heard of her in any history class, read about her in any period novels that were set in Ireland? How had the pirate queen, in scarcely five hundred years, been forgotten, while so many perfectly useless historical figures from that time were still put up on pedestals for students to look up to?

It was ridiculous, that's what. She wondered about Grace O'Malley's daughter, Margaret, mentioned only once in the long history of her mother's life. What must it have been like for her, growing up in the violent whirlwind that was her mother's life? Did she spend her girlhood at sea surrounded by soldiers as her mother had before her, or was she raised in isolation at the stronghold on Clare Island like a princess in exile? Did she fall in love with and marry one of the sea captains sworn to her mother, or was she married off by the O'Flahertys as a young girl, to live a demure noblewoman's life and watch her mother's exploits from afar? Did she die very young? Was that why mention of her was so scarce?

She lay back and looked up at the stars, the same ones as at home, only so many more, brilliant and mysterious against the darkness. She'd never felt so small, so average, in such a huge, glorious world. The sensation was almost liberating. Perhaps that was why pirates were drawn to the sea- it was so much bigger than their lives. So much bigger than the nightmares and heartaches of their past or the struggles of the present. It was a home that could never be taken away from them. Abby wished she were one of them, wished she had the kind of spirit that confronted such adventure rather than watching in fascination from the sidelines, and knew that she was not. But it was peaceful here, with the waves beating a soft rhythm on the cool, smooth sand…

Half an hour later, she was deeply asleep, lying there on the sand, a slight smile on her face.