Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to

explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

In 1593, a strange figure entered Buckingham Palace.

It was a woman from Ireland of around 60 years of age,

appearing in London for an audience with the Queen.

Elizabeth I greeted this woman,

and although the pair of them were about the same age,

the stranger seemed much older.

She was weather-beaten, her skin showing the evidence

of many years spent at sea. The two women spoke in Latin, which is the only tongue that they shared.

The visitor had a petition to bring before the queen. Her son and her half-brother were both

captured by Sir Richard Bingham, and she had come to implore Elizabeth

to spare their lives. If legends are to be believed, this visitor refused to bow before the

queen, and in open defiance to British authority, she had a dagger at her side. This defiant

Irish woman was Grunia Nualia, but she's best known to us as Grace O'Malley. Her most famous name is her

nickname in Irish folk history, Granuol, the pirate queen of Kinnacht. Her meeting with Queen

Elizabeth I would become the stuff of legends, but it was only a small part of an already

legendary career. Born to the chief of Clan O'Malley and County Mayo,

she displayed a taste for adventure from an early age. According to legend, as a child, she wanted

to accompany her father on a voyage to Spain. He refused, making the excuse that her long

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