Audience with Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich Palace

In September 1593, Grace O'Malley—known in Irish as Gráinne Ní Mháille—traveled from the west coast of Ireland to England and was granted a personal audience with Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich Palace. This extraordinary meeting occurred after O'Malley's sons, Tibbot Burke and Murrough O'Flaherty, along with her brother, had been imprisoned by the English governor of Connacht, Sir Richard Bingham, whose harsh policies had devastated her family's lands and livelihood.

According to tradition and English records, the two women reportedly conversed in Latin, as O'Malley spoke no English and the Queen no Irish. O'Malley presented a petition (the 'Eighteen Articles') requesting the release of her family members, restitution of confiscated goods, and permission to continue her maritime livelihood, including what English administrators termed piracy but what O'Malley considered legitimate toll-taking and trade defense.

The audience was historically remarkable: a Gaelic clan leader, already in her sixties, negotiating as an equal with the most powerful monarch in Europe, at a time when Ireland was under violent English conquest. Elizabeth granted several of O'Malley's requests, ordering Bingham to release her sons and cease certain persecutions, though tensions in Connacht continued. This meeting stands as one of the best-documented direct encounters between an Irish Gaelic leader and an English monarch during the Tudor era, and remains a cornerstone of Grace O'Malley's enduring legend as the 'Pirate Queen of Connacht.'