Living Lives: A Biographer's Journey by Anne Chambers
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
In Ireland, nothing gets us talking like lions. Tea? Small talk. Well Jimmy, shock on weather we're having. Big talk. Even I could have played county. Office talk. I'm MIA in the AM, but I'll circle back on the KPIs. Real talk. Milk before tea. Should be a criminal offence. You could say we talk too much, but the truth is, we don't talk nearly enough. Lions puts the talk into tea. The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk.
My next guest is a celebrated biographer, having written about lives as diverse as the pirate queen Grace O'Malley and Tom Cruise, not the actor, but her own pretty unknown uncle. And now she's written her own story, which looks at how her biographical subjects have impacted her own life. Anne Chambers, good morning and welcome to the programme. Pleasure to be here, Pat. You've called your book Living Lives, subtitled A Biographer's Journey. How did you get into the business of biography?
Well, it's very strange how I suppose history repeats itself both on a personal basis and as you were talking earlier on a political basis. I was a junior executive officer in the Central Bank of Ireland during the time of Ken Whittaker's governorship. Tapped me on the shoulder one morning, asked me into his office, which I presumed was to tell me I was sacked or something. Junior executive officers had much contact with the governor. And he heard I was from Mayo. We started talking about the Mayo countryside and particularly the coastline. And we came to Clare Island. And I said, that's where the Pirate Queen lived. And I only knew her through folklore. Going there on holidays myself as a kid. And I said to Ken Whittaker, someday I'm going to try and find out, did she really exist?
Because she wasn't in our school history books. And he put his finger up, as Ken Whittaker would do, and said, why are you saying sometime? Why don't you do it now? So in my early... In the mid-1970s, in my own early 20s, I set off on the voyage to find Grace.
Did you stay in the central bank?
How did Anne Chambers become a biographer?
I stayed in the Central Bank and I wrote five biographies during that time. And in 1972, I made the big decision then to take on the precarious life of a full-time writer.
Of a full-time writer. Now, the Pirate Queen, trying to get to the essence and the truth of something, and you found yourself looking at English archives and there, a lightbulb moment.
Well, they are really. I started off with Grace O'Malley was written out of history for lots of reasons. The 16th century has no flag, no ideology to follow. It was a divided society of Gaelic clans all fighting one another as quick as they would fight the incoming English. So consequently, Grace O'Malley couldn't have that flag. She wasn't a nationalistic character. She was there in a time that we can see happening now in Iran, in Ukraine, the takeover of a country. You know, you have all of that repeating itself. And she had to operate within that time. So consequently, the records offer are in the Elizabethan state papers. And it was like starting to learn a new language because English didn't become standardized until the 18th century.
So I was looking at dialect English. And it was totally written in a totally different way than we write English today. And I had to really learn a new language. But doing that, it opened up. I found the woman behind The Pirate Queen. And as a biographer, that's what I was interested in. The daughter, the mother, the wife, the widow, the lover, the grandmother.
And the first thing you had to find out, is she real? Was she real?
What inspired Anne Chambers to write about Grace O'Malley?
And yes, she was. I mean, this discovery. A most famous feminine sea captain called Granny Imali, famous for her stoutness of courage and person, with three galleys and 200 fighting men, either in Scotland or in Ireland, she brought with her husband for... 23 living lives, as well as by land as by sea, well more than Mrs. Mate with him. This was a notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland.
That was the very first introduction to Grey Somali. And what an introduction. If I was writing fiction, what people would say over the top.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:05
2
How did Anne Chambers become a biographer?
2:05–3:45
3
What inspired Anne Chambers to write about Grace O'Malley?
3:45–9:56
4
What challenges did Anne face while researching Grace O'Malley?
9:56–12:46
5
How did Grace O'Malley's story reflect the political climate of her time?
12:46–14:05