Anne Chambers is the primary biographer of Grace O’Malley. She’s been researching (and revising her books as she gets more. information) for 40 years! Anne started her research by deciphering 16th Century manuscripts and letters one character on the page at a time. There were no computers or internet at the beginning, so Anne had to take notes by hand.
In Living Lives: A Biographer’s Journey, Ms. Chambers writes about letting the facts show you who the person really is. Anne first learned about Gráinne as a girl living in County Mayo, where she was brought up with the legend of the Pirate Queen, “the ruthless… warrior woman or a fiercely nationalistic heroine. Instead [Grace O’Malley] represented and celebrated the power of
true womanhood when confronted by the power of both man and nature.”1
Anne Chambers has done the heavy lifting for anyone wanting to learn about Gráinne. Her books provide not only the story of the people she researches, they do so with an eye for the truth, and for resonance into our time. Because she worked so hard and so well, I can come along and look again at Gráinne and see another layer to the work. I see the experience of a woman and her family in the time of colonizing – of losing what gave life meaning and gave the people identity.
Grace being a noble, well-to-do person had privileges that ordinary people did not have – like education, travel, entrée into important circles and meetings. Because of the record Anne Chambers pulled together, we can look at what was lost, and see how our own family has been grieving, for centuries, without relief and without even knowing why. We can come back to the soil and find the furrows that were left behind by Gráinne and centuries of people before and after her.
1 Living Lives, Page 120