It was of a night

The story of the Prankquean and Jarl van Hoother is based upon a supposedly historical incident which took place in 1575 and involved the Irish pirate-queen Grace O'Malley (Granuaile) and the Earl of Howth Christopher St Lawrence 7th Baron Howth, 17th Lord of Howth (died 1589).

• Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London 1837), "Howth":

In 1575, the celebrated Grana Uile or Granuwail, better known as Grace O'Malley, on her return from a visit to Queen Elizabeth, landed here and proceeded to the castle; but indignant at finding the gates closed, as was the custom of the family during dinner-time, she seized the young heir of St. Laurence, then at nurse near the shore, and carried him prisoner to her own castle in Mayo, whence he was not released till after much negotiation, and only upon condition that when the family went to dinner the castle gates should be thrown open, and a cover laid for any stranger that might arrive; a custom which was scrupulously observed during the lifetime of the late Earl.

• Francis Elrington Ball, A History of the County Dublin (Dublin 1902-20), Volume V (Howth and Its Owners), Chapter 5, "Under Elizabeth":

A story of an heir of the house of Howth having been carried off by a Sea Queen to the western shores of Ireland, and of his ransom having been a promise of perpetual hospitality in the halls of Howth Castle, is widely known. In the popular imagination it is the most important event in the history of Howth, and forms a link between the peninsula and the Virgin Queen, in whose reign the Sea Queen flourished.

The Sea Queen, Graina Uaile by name, was a most remarkable woman, who fulfilled the motto of her race, terra marique potens ["powerful on land and on sea"], and was able to impress not only the Irish Government, but also Elizabeth herself, with a sense of her power. The story tells that about the year 1575, on her return from a visit to Elizabeth, Graina Uaile landed at Howth, and proceeded as far as the Castle gates, which she found closed.

On learning that the gates were closed because it was the dinner hour, she is said to have expressed great indignation at what she considered a dereliction of Irish hospitality, and meeting on her way back to her ship the heir of the house, who was then a child, she retaliated, according to the tradition, by seizing him and carrying him off to her home in the county of Mayo, where he was detained until a promise was given that the gates should never he shut again at dinner-time, and that a place should always be laid at the table for a guest.

Modern research has shown that the date of Graina Uaile's visit to Elizabeth's court was 18 years later than that assigned to it in the story, and the story has been therefore deemed to be unfounded. But without direct evidence to controvert it, tradition should not be lightly set aside, and the possibility that an incident such as the tradition relates may have occurred is beyond dispute.

Although she did not go to Elizabeth's court at the time mentioned, "the dark lady of Doona" did come a year later to Dublin to see Elizabeth's representative, Sir Henry Sidney; and at that time the heir to Howth in the second generation was a child. ["History and Archaeology of Clare Island," p. 41. It will be seen at this reference (note 5) that Duald Mac Firbis, in his Great Book of Genealogies, assigns the incident to the 15th century, and says that it was Richard Cuairsci, or Richard of the Bent Shield, who, between 1469 and 1479, took the Lord of Bonn Etar and brought him to Tyrawley."]

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: "St Lawrence, Christopher":

Christopher St Lawrence had defective eyesight and was known as "The Blind Lord". He was one of the compilers of the Book of Howth, a chronicle of medieval Ireland. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Plunket of Beaulieu, County Louth, in 1546; they had fourteen children, of whom only six survived to adulthood: Nicholas his successor, Thomas (d. 1600), Leonard (d. 1608), Richard, Mary (married Sir Patrick Barnewall of Turvey) and Margaret (d. 1620). The death of another daughter, thirteen-year-old Jane, was caused by the baron's own hand. In a case before the court of castle chamber in Dublin on 22 May 1579, Lord Howth was charged with having beaten her so cruelly that she died within two days, and also with severely maltreating his wife, Elizabeth (who was confined to bed for two weeks with her injuries), and his butler, who attempted to comfort her. Having heard evidence of the assaults and of the baron's "filthy conversation" and dissolute life with "strange women", the court imposed a fine of £1000. Three years later the court reduced the fine to £500, having heard the baron's plea that he had already been punished to his ‘intolerable charge and hindrance’ by having spent nineteen weeks in prison. Elizabeth Plunket left her husband about 1579, and (probably in the following year) he married Cecily, daughter of Alderman Henry Cusack of Dublin, who, on the baron's demise, wedded first John Barnwell of Monkton, co. Meath, and second, John Finglas of Westpalston, co. Dublin. Lord Howth died on 24 October 1589 and was buried in Howth Abbey.

• It seems that the abducted child was Christopher, the future 10th Baron Howth, whose grandfather Christopher, 8th Baron Howth, was the reigning earl at the time of the abduction; Nicholas, the future 9th Baron Howth, was a grown man in 1575.

External Links

• Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland
• Francis Elrington Ball, A History of the County Dublin