If you want to do this yourself, quick and dirty, it would be something like this:
function yourmodule_init() {
$foo=drupal_get_path_alias($_GET['q']);
$bar=explode('/',$foo);
if ($bar[0]=='this-string-to-redirect') {
$bar[0]='redirect-me-here';
}
$baz=implode('/',$bar);
drupal_goto($baz);
}
You might also want/need to throw in a weight of -1 to make sure your module runs early by putting:
function yourmodule_install() {
db_query('UPDATE {system} SET weight = -1 WHERE name = "yourmodule"');
}
in yourmodule.install but a quick look just now shows globalredirect's weight at the default of 0 so this may be unneeded.