Why haven’t we ever heard of Irish pirates? And what happened to them?

We landlubbers* usually associate pirates (at least the historical kind of people who sailed around attacking and robbing boats) with the Caribbean. But, as it turns out, Ireland (which is pretty out of the way and not known as a particularly fierce or seagoing nation) was once home to boatloads of buccaneers (that’s just another way of saying pirates). Not only did they live up and down the Irish coast, but — shiver me timbers!* — they also ruled fleets of ships and ran the country’s economy.

The pirates of the Caribbean may be more famous, but they only terrorized the high seas for some 70 years. The pirates of Ireland thrived for something like nearly 14 centuries (that’s 1,400 years!). There are records of Irish pirates attacking Britain and capturing locals going back to 400 CE (just for comparison’s sake, the Talmud Yerushalmi had been written down about 50 years before that). Fast forward to the time of the Mayflower. A massive Irish pirate alliance was just coming to an end…. That’s a lot of pirate history for a country that’s kind of out of the way.

*(See “A Pirate Glossary” below to learn some pirate words.)

Castlehaven County Cork, Ireland, 1600s

The night’s so dark it looks like velvet. Turn toward the sea… see those tiny twinkling lights? I think they’re lanterns!

Lean in, let your eyes search the dark, look closely. Is that a group of men gathered there? Shh! Don’t make a sound, they’ll hear you on the rocky ground.

Wait, where are they going? The lights are flickering and moving! They’re descending and disappearing! There must be a hidden stairway carved right into the cliff! It leads to the sea….

Who are they? What are they doing?

Let’s creep closer. Slowly, slowly. Shhh! Careful! There are cliffs below! There, do you see the white sail? There’s a boat moving silently… closer, closer, mooring directly below us. They must be pirates!