Discover

'Constance, Countess Markiewicz' (4 February, 1868 – 15 July, 1927), was an Irish Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician, revolutionary nationalist and suffragette. She was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, though she did not take her seat and along with the other Sinn Féin TDs formed the first Dáil Éireann. She was also the first woman in Europe to hold a cabinet position (Minister of Labour of the Irish Republic, 1919–1922).

Contents

Early life

Marriage and early politics

Easter Rising

First Dáil

Civil War and Fianna Fáil

See also

Sources

Further reading

External links

Political career

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 (100 km²) estate with compassion. During the famine of 1879–80, Sir Henry provided free food for the tenants on his estate in the north west of Ireland. Their father's example inspired in Gore-Booth 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.

Marriage and early politics

Gore-Booth decided to train as a painter, but at the time only one art school in Dublin accepted female students. In 1892 she went to study at the Slade School of Art 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 Académie Julian where she met her future husband, Count Kazimierz Dunin-Markiewicz, a wealthy Polish aristocrat. He was married at the time, but his wife died in 1899 and he wed Gore-Booth 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. Countess Markiewicz also undertook the role of mother to Nicolas, Kazimierz's son from his first marriage, who then accompanied Markiewicz and Kazimierz to Ireland. It was claimed that Markiewicz was particularly fond of him and was devastated by his decision to return to Poland. Knowing that her arrest was imminent after the 1916 Rising, Countess stashed the silver shotgun that Nicolas had given her.
The Markiewiczes 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 John Butler Yeats, she 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 milieu she met the leading figures of the Gaelic League founded by the future first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde. Although formally apolitical and concerned with the preservation of the Irish language and culture, 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, Markiewicz 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 journals 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 Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann ('Daughters of Ireland'), 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 ball-gown and a diamond tiara. Naturally, the members looked upon her with some hostility. This refreshing change from being "Kowtowed"-to as a countess only made her more eager to join. She performed 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, 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 campaigned 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 centred on politics and Irish independence in particular.
In 1909 Markiewicz founded Fianna Éireann, a para-military organisation that instructed teenage boys in the use of firearms. Pádraig Pearse said that the creation of 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. During this protest Markiewicz handed out leaflets, erected great masts: ''Dear land thou art not conquered yet.'', engaged in stone throwing and attempted to burn the giant British flag at Leinster House but to no avail. Her friend Helena Moloney was the first woman ever to be tried and arrested for the stone throwing she engaged in with Markiewicz. Markiewicz also joined James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army (ICA), a small volunteer force formed in response to the lockout of 1913, to defend the demonstrating workers from the police. Markiewicz, though an aristocrat, held sympathy with the ordinary workers. Markiewicz recruited volunteers to peel potatoes in a basement while she worked and others worked on distributing the food. All food was paid out of her own pocket, Markiewicz was forced to take out many loans at this time and sold all her jewellery. That same year, with Inghinidhe na hÉireann, she started a soup kitchen to feed poor school children.

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 Kazimierz was present by her side when she died in 1927. As a member of the ICA Markiewicz took part in the 1916 Easter Rising. The Countess was deeply inspired by the founder of the ICA, James Connolly. For him she designed the ICA uniforms and composed the anthem for the ICA, a polish song with the lyrics changed. Markiewicz held the position of an officer, above the rank-and-file members making her a decision maker, and more importantly, able to carry arms.
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. Inspired by newsreel footage from the Western Front, they initially began to dig trenches in the Green. British fire from the rooftops of adjacent tall buildings, including the Shelbourne Hotel, however, soon convinced them of the folly of this tactic, and they withdrew to the adjacent Royal College of Surgeons.
Mallin and Markiewicz and their men would hold out 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 Markiewicz.
They were taken to Dublin Castle and the Countess was then transported to Kilmainham Gaol. They were jeered by the crowds as they walked through the streets of Dublin. 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." However in recent transcripts it has been recorded by a member of the court that Markiewicz broke down in cross examination pleading for her release because of her gender. 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 the 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 Rising, as the government in London granted a general amnesty for those who had participated in it. It was around this time that Markiewicz, born into the Church of Ireland converted to Catholicism.

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.

Civil War and Fianna Fáil

Markiewicz left government in January 1922 along with Éamon de Valera and others in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She fought actively for the Republican cause in the Irish Civil War helping to defend Moran's Hotel in Dublin. After the War she toured the United States. She was not elected in the 1922 Irish general election but was returned in the 1923 general 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 La Scala Theatre. In the June 1927 general 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 she could take up her seat.
She died at the age of 59, on 15 July 1927, possibly of tuberculosis (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. Éamon de Valera, the Fianna Fáil leader, gave the funeral oration.
The by-election for her Dáil seat in Dublin South was held on 24 August, 1927 and won by the Cumann na nGaedhael candidate Thomas Hennessy.

See also

★ 1916 Rising

★ Eva Gore-Booth

★ Helena Moloney

★ List of Sligo people

★ List of people on stamps of Ireland

Sources

★ S. Pašeta, ‘Markievicz , Constance Georgine, Countess Markievicz in the Polish nobility (1868–1927)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 [1], accessed 17 September, 2006

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 McGowan, ''Constance Markievicz: The People's Countess'' (2003)

External links

★ Detailed Countess Markiewicz info

★ Article on Constance Markiewicz

★ Her impassioned speeches in the Treaty Debates.

Political career