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Why Are Pirates Romanticised?

Spookdaddy said:
Although enemy states may have considered his actions piratical, it's my understanding that Drake was, strictly speaking, a privateer.
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A privateer is a pirate with a license issued by a country they didn't steal from. As long as the government 'got it's cut', how they got the money was immaterial.
I think there's many factors that 'romanticise' criminality, whether it's pirates, smugglers, or criminal gangs.
Pirates - the setting was in exotic foreign parts where many of the general public were too poor to even dream of going. The stories were of brutality but bravery. They flew in the face of authority - who'd use exactly the same violence as pirates.
Smugglers - local lads who were fighting off taxes from a London-based government. They gave employment (a cut of the criminal proceeds) to locals, donated to the church and local squire (bribes to keep mouths shut), and if they were violent, well, it was a violent world with capital punishment for nearly all crime.
Criminal Gangs - local lads who made lots of money in a poverty-stricken world. Who cares if they knock-off a bank - it's a bank and they are insured right? They never hurt their 'own' - unless they were a witness, a grass or just someone who didn't give 'em enough respect! They may rule by fear but they can't be all bad, eh? They're making their way in a tough world and their form of protection racket is only what insurance companies do ... but without the arson or beatings.
The biggest factor in romanticising these types is the distance of time. The further away, the less easy to see the brutality. There's the hint of nostalgia - "In our day, they didn't deal wiv' heroin or kids. It was honest crime like prostitution, blackmail and theft. Oh, and murder, of course."
 
I wonder which cultures in the world do not have a tradition of an outsider living a live of freedom from social constraints but who is a decent human being. I actually do not know. I suspect that a comparison between the cultures who do and those who do not would reveal much.
 
Stormkhan said:
A privateer is a pirate with a license issued by a country they didn't steal from. As long as the government 'got it's cut', how they got the money was immaterial.
I think there's many factors that 'romanticise' criminality, whether it's pirates, smugglers, or criminal gangs...
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Yes - all it took was a letter of marque to differentiate between treated as a hero and a villain, and being hung in chains on the Wapping shoreline (which basically describes the career trajectory of Captain Kidd.) Piracy had a very specific legal definition - but the letter of marque, or similar dispensation - rather confusingly made specifically targeted piratical acts no longer subject to the laws of piracy, at least in the home nation. Such dispensations created what was effectively an auxiliary navy. North African corsairs played a similar role to the English privateers, I believe. And privateers - who were effectively incorporated into the Revolutionary navy - played an influential role during the American War of Independence. Despite the strict legal definition of the act of piracy, the word 'pirate' itself - used to describe an individual - is a little generic, and actually covers a bit of a spectrum.
 
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Frideswide said:
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !
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Hardly "Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie" is it?
 
Frideswide said:
Romanticised smugglers. Rudyard Kipling's A Smuggler's Song

https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/a-smugglers-song

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day !

If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more !

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been !

Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by !

'If You do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along 'o being good !

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !
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Does that really romanticise smuggling? It's very much written from the side of those for whom the smuggling is an essential way of life, and it does mention coats being 'wet and warm...' Doesn't sound all that romantic to me, sounds dangerous!
 
I think it's the gold embroidered epaulettes, the little peaked cap, and having the best seat in the cockpit.

Oh hang on, no...that's pilots.

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Ronnie Jersey said:
I think pirates are romanticized because of those puffy shirts they wear!
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They need those to slip their hook hands through.
Reminds me of playing The Secret of Monkey Island on my old Amiga.
This was one of the first laughs, after Guybrush asks the pirate what happened to his eye:

monkey.png
 
I agree with many of the previous answers, you can also add Vikings to this, they mainly invaded peaceful and prosperous lands killing, and maiming as well as stealing and destroying, yet they are portrayed as anti heroes or even the good guys
 
Robbrent said:
I agree with many of the previous answers, you can also add Vikings to this, they mainly invaded peaceful and prosperous lands killing, and maiming as well as stealing and destroying, yet they are portrayed as anti heroes or even the good guys
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I already mentioned Vikings. And motorcycle gangs.
 
Robbrent said:
I agree with many of the previous answers, you can also add Vikings to this, they mainly invaded peaceful and prosperous lands killing, and maiming as well as stealing and destroying, yet they are portrayed as anti heroes or even the good guys
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Notably in the recent Vikings: Valhalla series.
It promoted the traditional pagan Vikings as heroic, whereas the chief boo-hiss baddie was Christian.
 
Robbrent said:
they mainly invaded peaceful and prosperous lands killing, and maiming as well as stealing and destroying,
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Yeah but that's also true of pretty much every nation that had a navy and an empire to build.
The Romans, the Greeks, the Spanish, The British, etc etc etc
 
Spookdaddy, you are right about the press gang.

A lot of these sailors were not willing crew at all.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
It promoted the traditional pagan Vikings as heroic, whereas the chief boo-hiss baddie was Christian.
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Ivar, Kjetill Flatnose and White Hair are heroic? and Judith, Ecbert and Alfred are boo-hiss baddies?

I suggest that, like Athelstan, the whole thing is rather more nuanced than you suggest.
 
Frideswide said:
Ivar, Kjetill Flatnose and White Hair are heroic? and Judith, Ecbert and Alfred are boo-hiss baddies?

I suggest that, like Athelstan, the whole thing is rather more nuanced than you suggest.
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I thought Freydis was the main heroine and she stood for Viking paganism, whereas Olaf, the Christian fundamentalist, was the chief villain.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
I thought Freydis was the main heroine and she stood for Viking paganism, whereas Olaf, the Christian fundamentalist, was the chief villain.
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er.... no? She's in two of six seasons.

Quick question without the help of the interwebs: who is Lagertha? :)
 
Frideswide said:
I missed that crucial detail and will bow to your greater knnowledge!
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Vikings Valhalla brings the saga ever closer to the Norman conquest, where Rollo's great grandson aka William the Conqueror won the Vikings' greatest ever victory. But by 1066, they were pretty well all Christians anyway. The Valhalla series was mostly about how paganism and Christianity were fighting it out within the Viking culture and the series didn't show the Christians in a very good light.
 
A better question would be why are male pirates romanticized?

There were several femalle pirates, few are well known. Some of the better known are , Mary Read, Anne Bonny and Grace O'Malley. The infamous Chinese pirate Cheng Sao (? Spelling) was referred to in one of pirates of the Caribbean films.
 
Eyespy said:
A better question would be why are male pirates romanticized?

There were several femalle pirates, few are well known. Some of the better known are , Mary Read, Anne Bonny and Grace O'Malley. The infamous Chinese pirate Cheng Sao (? Spelling) was referred to in one of pirates of the Caribbean films.
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Grace is remembered and honoured.

Westport House[edit]​


Statue of Gráinne Mhaol in Westport House
Westport House in County Mayo, Ireland, was the seat of the Browne dynasty, Marquesses of Sligo, direct descendants of Grace O'Malley. The current house was built close to the site of Cahernamart (Cathair na Mart – "fort of the beef market"), an Ó Máille fort. The original house was built by Colonel John Browne, a Jacobite, who was at the Siege of Limerick (1691), and his wife Maude Bourke. Maude Bourke was O'Malley's great-great-granddaughter.

A statue of Grace O'Malley by the artist Michael Cooper – the brother-in-law of the 11th Marquess of Sligo – is on display in Westport House, and a bronze casting of the statue is situated on the grounds near the house.[31] Westport House also contains a comprehensive exhibition on the life of O'Malley compiled by the author Anne Chambers, a leading authority on Granuaile.

Cultural impact[edit]​

O'Malley's life has inspired many musicians, novelists, and playwrights to create works based on her life and adventures and she has been used as a personification of Ireland:[32][33]

Music[edit]​

  • The Irish language poet and Easter Rising leader Patrick Pearse used Gráinne O'Malley as a symbol of Irish republicanism in his lyrics to Óró sé do bheatha abhaile.
  • In 1985, the Irish composer and singer Shaun Davey composed a suite of music based on the life and times of O'Malley, Granuaile, published in 1986.
  • The Indulgers' 2000 album In Like Flynn includes a song entitled "Granuaile", which is centred on the legend of O'Malley.[34]
  • Dead Can Dance's 2012 album Anastasis features a song titled "Return of the She-King", which was inspired by O'Malley.[35]
  • The Irish musician Gavin Dunne (Miracle of Sound) released a song entitled "Gráinne Mhaol, Queen Of Pirates" on his 2015 album Metal Up.[36]
  • The Canadian folk punk band The Dreadnoughts released a song entitled "Grace O'Malley" on their 2009 Victory Square album.[37]
  • The Swedish melodic death metal band Frantic Amber released a song entitled "Graínne Mhaol" on their 2017 digital re-release of the originally 2015 released album "Burning Insight".[38]
  • The 2019 Album Talk like a Pirate by Rockin' Ron the friendly Pirate "Ron Carter" features the song Pirate Grace O'Malley, based on the life of Grace O'Malley

Theatre[edit]​

  • The play Bald Grace by Marki Shalloe debuted at Chicago's Stockyards Theatre in 2005, and was featured at Atlanta's Theatre Gael (America's oldest Irish-American theatre) in 2006.[39]
  • The Broadway musical The Pirate Queen depicting O'Malley's life debuted at the Hilton Theater in 2007, with Stephanie J. Block portraying O'Malley.[40]
  • American actress Molly Lyons wrote and starred in a one-woman show titled A Most Notorious Woman, detailing the life of O'Malley. It has been produced internationally at theatres and festivals.[41][full citation needed]
  • The play Gráinne, by J.Costello, K. Doyle, L. Errity, and A. L. Mentxaka, of 2015, tells the story of Grace O'Malley in six snapshots. It was premiered by Born to Burn productions in Dublin in November 2015, with an all-woman cast playing three female roles and six male roles. The text of the play was published in a limited edition by artisan publishers Gur Cake Editions.[42]
  • Irish actress, writer and director, Maggie Cronin's first play, a solo show called A Most Notorious Woman: tales of Grace O'Malley – premiered in 1989.[43][full citation needed]

Literature[edit]​

Statues[edit]​

Other[edit]​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_O'Malley
 
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