Have you heard of Anne Bonny - the Irish female pirate?

I've recently listened to two compelling audio books by Daphne du Maurier: Jamaica Inn and Frenchman's Creek, both very different as the first is dark and dramatic and the second is humorous and romantic. Both have du Maurier suspense and both are about pirates in Cornwall.

Cornish pirates inspired me to research Irish pirates and I discovered Anne Bonny. She was a young Irish woman who was born Anne Cormac in Cork at the end of the 17th century. Apparently she was the illegitimate daughter of a well-to-do lawyer and his housemaid. There are many stories and myths about this reckless woman pillaging treasure ships on the high seas. 

In the 18th century, she eloped to the Caribbean with an Irish sailor called John Bonny, who had dubious connections.

She soon bored of her husband and went off on the ‘William’, a ship captained by an English pirate called Jack Rackham. We know Anne Bonny existed because there is a report of her trial when she and her shipmates were captured. Jack and the men were hanged but Anne and another female pirate called Mary Read managed to avoid death due to the fact they were pregnant. Mary Read died in prison but no one knows what happened to Anne Bonny after that but some believe that she married again and had numerous children.

‘Calico’ Jack Rackham

Anne Bonny’s exploits made me curious about ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham. He was an English pirate who became famous for being the first pirate captain to have two females onboard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. We often hear that women were considered unlucky on a ship at sea but Jack obviously decided to take a chance when he got involved with Anne and she left her husband for him. They sailed the Caribbean for two months, plundering other vessels, and then went to Cuba where Anne gave birth to their baby.

The pirate hunter, Jonathan Barnet, captured Rackham and his ship in October 1720 and the crew were hanged in Spanish Town, Jamaica, with the exception of the two women who escaped the death sentence by being pregnant.

A seafaring monkey who turned thief

North Quay in Drogheda in 1883 was an interesting place for a stroll with its tall ships and tales of the sea. There is a wonderful story added to the National Library profile comments on Flickr about a man who lived on this street who once swapped a bible for a monkey, presumably with one of the sailors.

The monkey had apparently picked up bad habits at sea and it used to escape across the rooftops, shimmy down into other houses and steal objects, which it brought back to the attic of its owner’s house. When the monkey’s hoard was eventually unearthed, they even discovered items pilfered from the local police station! Not even a cat burglar could get away with that one.

This was Monkstown in Dublin in the year 1895 when a ship ran aground and provided an interesting spectacle for passers-by. (Photo: The National Library, Dublin)