Constance Georgine, Countess Markiewicz
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Constance, Countess Markiewicz (4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), was an Irish politician, revolutionary nationalist and suffragette.
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[edit] Early life
She was born Constance Georgine Gore-Booth at Buckingham Gate in London, the elder daughter of the arctic explorer and adventurer Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet and Lady Georgina née Hill. Unlike many Anglo-Irish landowners in Ireland, he was an enlightened landlord who administered his forty square mile estate with compassion. During the famine of 1879–80, Gore-Booth provided free food for the tenants on his estate in the north west of Ireland. Their father's example inspired in Constance and her younger sister, Eva Gore-Booth a deep concern for the poor. The sisters were childhood friends of the poet, W. B. Yeats, who frequently visited the family home Lissadell House in County Sligo, and were influenced by his artistic and political ideas. Eva later became involved in the labour movement and women's suffrage in England, although initially the future countess did not share her sister's ideals.
[edit] Marriage and early politics
Constance decided to train as a painter, but at the time there was only one at school in Dublin that accepted female students. In 1892 she went to study at the Slade in London. It was at this time that Gore-Booth first became politically active and joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Later she moved to Paris and enrolled at the prestigious Academie Julian where she met her future husband, Count Casimir Dunin-Markiewicz, a wealthy Polish aristocrat. He was married at the time, but his wife died in 1899 and he wed Constance in 1901 making her Countess Markiewicz. She gave birth to their daughter, Maeve at Lissadell shortly after the marriage. The child was raised by her Gore- Booth grandparents and eventually became estranged from her mother.
The Markiewiczs settled in Dublin in 1903 and moved in artistic and literary circles, the Countess gaining a reputation for herself as a landscape painter. In 1905, along with artists Sarah Purser, Nathaniel Hone, Walter Osborne and poet John Butler Yeats, the Countess was instrumental in founding the United Artists Club, which was an attempt to bring together all those in Dublin with an artistic and literary bent. At this time, there was nothing tangible to link her to revolutionary politics, but socialising in this millieu, she would have met the leading figures of the Gaelic League founded by the future first President of the Irish Free State, Douglas Hyde. Although apolitical and concerned with the preservation of the Irish language, the league brought together many patriots and future political leaders. Sarah Purser, whom the young Gore-Booth sisters first met in 1882, when she was commissioned to paint their portrait, hosted a regular salon where artists, writers and intellectuals on both sides of the nationalist divide, gathered. At Purser's house, Markiewicz met with revolutionary patriots Michael Davitt, John O'Leary and Maud Gonne. In 1906, Constance rented a small cottage in the countryside around Dublin. The previous tenant was the poet Padraic Colum who had left behind old copies of The Peasant and Sinn Féin. These revolutionary tracts promoted independence from British rule. The Countess read these publications and was propelled into action.
In 1908, Markiewicz became actively involved in nationalist politics in Ireland. She joined Sinn Fein and the Daughter's of Erin Inghinidhe na hÉireann, a revolutionary women's movement founded by the actress and activist Maud Gonne, muse of W. B. Yeats. Markiewicz came directly to her first meeting from a function at Dublin Castle, the seat of British rule in Ireland, wearing a satin ballgown and a diamond tiara. Naturally, the members looked upon her with some hostility. This refreshing change from being "kowtowed" to as a as a countess only made her more eager to join. She acted with Maud Gonne in several plays at the newly established Abbey Theatre, an institution that played an important part in the rise of cultural nationalism. In the same year, the Markiewicz stood for Parliament, contesting the Manchester constituency in opposition to Winston Churchill. Her sister Eva Gore-Booth had moved there to live with fellow suffragette Esther Roper and they both campained for her. The Countess lost the election, but in the space of two years she had gone from a life oriented around art, to a life centered on politics and Irish independence in particular.
In 1909, Markiewicz founded Fianna Éireann, a para-military organisation that instructed the youths in the use of firearms. Pádraig Pearse said that the creation of Na Fianna Éireann was as important as the creation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. The Countess was jailed for the first time in 1911 for speaking at an Irish Republican Brotherhood demonstration attended by 30,000 people, organized to protest against George V's visit to Ireland. Markiewicz also joined James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army, a small volunteer force formed in response to the lockout of 1913, to defend the demonstrating workers from the police. That same year, with the Daughters of Erin, she started a soup kitchen to feed poor school children.
[edit] Easter Rising
In 1913, her husband moved to the Ukraine, possibly because of his wife's activities and never returned to live in Ireland. However they corresponded and Caismir was present by her side when she died in 1927. As a member of the ICA Constance took part in the 1916 Easter Rising.
Lieutenant Markiewicz was second in command to Michael Mallin in St. Stephen's Green. She supervised the setting up of barricades as the rising began and was in the middle of the fighting all around Stephen's Green wounding a British sniper.
Mallin and Markiewicz and their men would hold on to the Green for six days, finally giving up when the British brought them a copy of Pearse's surrender order. The English officer who accepted their surrender was a Captain Wheeler, a relative of Markievicz.
They were taken to Dublin Castle and the Countess was then transported to Kilmainham jail. There, she was the only one of 70 women prisoners who was put into solitary confinement. At her court martial she told the court, "I did what was right and I stand by it." Her conviction was assured, only her sentence was in doubt. She was sentenced to death, but General Maxwell commuted this to life in prison on "account of the prisoner's sex." She told court, "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me."
The Countess was released from prison in 1917, along with others involved in the Uprising, as the government in London granted a General Amnesty for those involved in the Easter Rising. It was around this time that Markiewicz, born into the Church of Ireland converted to Catholicism.
[edit] First Dáil
In 1918, she was jailed again for her part in anti-conscription activities. In the December 1918 general election, Markiewicz was elected for the constituency of Dublin St Patrick's as one of 73 Sinn Féin MPs. This made her the first woman elected to the British House of Commons. However, in line with Sinn Féin policy, she refused to take her seat.
Countess Markiewicz joined her colleagues assembled in Dublin as the first incarnation of Dáil Éireann, the unilaterally-declared Parliament of the Irish Republic. She was re-elected to the Second Dáil in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland elections of 1921.
Markiewicz served as Minister for Labour from April 1919 to January 1922, in the Second Ministry and the Third Ministry of the Dáil. Holding cabinet rank from April to August 1919, she became the first Irish female Cabinet Minister. She was the only female cabinet minister in Irish history until 1979 when Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was appointed to the then junior cabinet post of Minister for the Gaeltacht for Fianna Fáil.
[edit] Civil War and Fianna Fáil
Markiewicz left government in January 1922 along with Eamon de Valera and others in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She fought actively for the Republican cause in the Irish Civil War. After the War she toured America. She was not elected in the Irish general election of 1922 but was returned in the 1923 election for the Dublin South constituency. In common with other Republican candidates, she did not take her seat. However her staunch republican views led her to being sent to jail again. In prison, she and 92 other female prisoners went on hunger strike. Within a month, the Countess was released. The hunger-strikes of the Suffragettes had been a huge embarrassment to the British government before the war.
She joined Fianna Fáil on its foundation in 1926, chairing the inaugural meeting of the new party in The La Scala Theatre. In the June 1927 election, she was re-elected to the 5th Dáil as a candidate for the new Fianna Fáil party, which was pledged to return to Dáil Éireann, but died only five weeks later, before taking her seat.
She died at the age of 59, on 15 July 1927, possibly of consumption (contracted when she worked in the poorhouses of Dublin) or complications related to appendicitis. Her estranged husband and daughter and beloved stepson were by her side. She was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland. Eamon de Valera, the Fianna Fáil leader, gave the funeral oration.
The by-election for her Dáil seat in Dublin South was held on 24th August and won by the Cumann na nGaedhael candidate Thomas Hennessy.
| One thing she had in abundance - physical courage; with that she was clothed as with a garment |
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
- S. Pašeta, ‘Markievicz , Constance Georgine, Countess Markievicz in the Polish nobility (1868–1927)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 17 Sept 2006
[edit] Further reading
- Anne Marreco — The Rebel Countess: The Life and Times of Constance Markievicz (1967)
- Diana Norman — Terrible Beauty: A Life of Constance Markievicz, 1868-1927 (1987)
- Anne Haverty — Constance Markievicz: Irish Revolutionary (1993)
- Joe Mc Gowan Constance Markievicz: The People's Countess (2003)
[edit] External links
- [1] Detailed Countess Markiewicz info on http://www.TheWildGeese.com
- [2] Article on Constance Markiewicz
- [3] Her impassioned speeches in the Treaty Debates.
Categories: 1868 births | 1927 deaths | British female MPs | Converts to Roman Catholicism | Female Teachtaí Dála | Former Teachtaí Dála | Irish socialists | History of Ireland 1801-1922 | Irish Fianna Fáil Party politicians | Members of the 1st Dáil | Members of the 2nd Dáil | Members of the 4th Dáil | Members of the 5th Dáil | Members of the United Kingdom Parliament from Irish constituencies (1801-1922) | Rebels | Revolutionaries | Roman Catholic politicians | British suffragists | Burials in Glasnevin Cemetery
