Shiver her timbers!

A Kinsale woman is the joint subject of a new biography on two of the greatest ever female pirates.

The new book ‘Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read’ by expert Dr Rebecca Simon is the first ever full-length biography of both of these infamous women.

Anne Bonney was born in or near Kinsale in 1697 and moved to the province of Carolina as a child with her father. She married a sailor by the name of James Bonney and they moved to Nassau in the Bahamas, a haven for pirates.

There she left her husband and took up with a famous pirate called Calico Jack Rackham and began her career in piracy alongside Mary Read.

Between August and October 1720, Anne Bonny and Mary Read terrorised the Caribbean in and around Jamaica. Despite their short career, they became two of the most notorious pirates during the height of the eighteenth century ‘golden age of piracy’.

In a world dominated by men, they became infamous for their bravery, cruelty and determination to escape the social constraints placed on women during that time. Despite their infamy, mystery shrouds their lives before they became pirates.

Their biographies were recorded in Captain Charles Johnson’s 1724 book, ‘A General History of the Pyrates’, which depicted the two women as illegitimate women raised by men who, against insurmountable odds, crossed paths in Nassau and became pirates together. But how much is fact?

This biography about Anne Bonny and Mary Read explores their backgrounds while examining the social context of women in their lifetime and their legacy.

Using ‘A General History of the Pyrates’, early modern legal documents relating to women, their recorded public trial in ‘The Tryal of Jack Rackham and Other Pyrates’, newspapers and new research, the book unravels the mysteries and legends surrounding their lives.

The book also features Irish pirate queen Grainne O’Malley. Author Dr Rebecca Simon is an historian and expert on piracy.

Last summer, a large scale mural celebrating Anne Bonny was unveiled at the iconic Stoney Steps in Kinsale.