Why was Countess Markievicz born in London ?

TheRedDevil10

Anyone know ?

Delancey

Because that was where her mother was ?

Jokes aside , I think the Gore-Booth family maintained a London residence as well as Lissadell. Perhaps her family were in Lindon for the social season or something like that ?

TheRedDevil10

Did Constance stay in London for long after her birth ?

franc 91

I've had a look round the net and nearly all that's there is just repetition - as far as I can see she spent her childhood at Lissadell House.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Markievicz
http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Gore-Booth_Markiewicz
http://lissadellhouse.com/countess.html

CDfm

Delancey wrote: »

Because that was where her mother was ?

Jokes aside , I think the Gore-Booth family maintained a London residence as well as Lissadell. Perhaps her family were in Lindon for the social season or something like that ?

That makes sense and wasn't her mother english and her father a sometime MP with property interests in England.

franc 91

If you look at the information provided you will see that her family belonged to the Anglo-Irish ascendancy. They owned land and property both in England and Ireland and up until 1900's, I don't think making the distinction of being either Irish or English would have meant very much to them. In fact at the time of the Famine they even sold land in England - at a loss, as it turned out - to be in position to finance the aid they provided to the starving and not only to those who lived on their own estates. They were protestant of course but Constance became a catholic towards the end of her eventful life.

CDfm

So I wonder if there is a biography of her father or something listed on the PRONI Lissadel site.

http://www.proni.gov.uk/introduction__lissadell_papers_d4131_.pdf

http://www.proni.gov.uk/lissadell_papers_summary.pdf

Her sister Eva Gore-booth was secretary of the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage and they had property interests there afaik.

I agree with franc 91 that they may have considered thesmelves British

franc 91

I see, looking at one of the documents above (which are very detailed) that the exact family address where she was born was - 7 Buckingham Gate, directly opposite to Buckingham Palace. You can see it on google maps/street view if you want to. The facade and doorway wouldn't have changed much since she was there.

CDfm

Her father inherited the estate in 1876 and was involved in other activities and had an interest in big game hunting and arctic exploration.

.

Henry Gore-Booth, Sligo: (1843 –1900), was a notable Arctic explorer, adventurer and landowner from Lissadell House, Sligo, Ireland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Henry_Gore-Booth,_5th_Baronet

Smith/Leigh Smith - B. Leigh Smith is recorded as the owner of almost 3,000 acres in county Galway in the 1870s. This may be Benjamin Leigh Smith, the polar explorer and brother of Barbara Leigh Smith Bodicon, artist and female activist, who was rescued by Sir Henry Gore Booth during an Arctic expedition in 1882.

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie:8080/LandedEstates/jsp/family-show.jsp?id=135

There were quite a few Irish explorers

http://www.ncte.ie/navanec/polar.html

basillarkin

Taken from the Oxford DNB Markievicz [née Gore-Booth], Constance Georgine, Countess Markievicz in the Polish nobility (1868–1927), Irish republican and first woman elected to parliament, was born on 4 February 1868 at 7 Buckingham Gate, Pimlico, London, the eldest of the three daughters and two sons of Sir Henry William Gore-Booth (1843–1900), philanthropist and explorer, of Lissadell, co. Sligo, and Georgina Mary Hill (d. 1927), of Tickhill Castle, York. Eva Gore-Booth, the campaigner for women's suffrage, was her sister. Constance Gore-Booth spent most of her childhood at the family house at Lissadell, and although she lived most of her adult life in Dublin and abroad she retained a strong attachment to the west of Ireland.

Descended from seventeenth-century planters, the Gore-Booths were prominent landowners whose wealth and social standing ensured that their children enjoyed a privileged childhood. The family entertained lavishly, hosting such guests as W. B. Yeats, whose poem ‘In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Constance Markievicz’ (1927) chronicled both his early visits to Lissadell and the subsequent careers of both women. Taking advantage of the family's extensive grounds Constance Gore-Booth enjoyed country pursuits, including hunting, driving, and riding, and became especially well known for her skill with the rifle and in the saddle. With Eva she was educated by governesses at home, her tutelage consisting mainly of instruction in the genteel arts of poetry, music, and art appreciation. In 1886 she made a grand tour of the continent, and in the following year was presented to Queen Victoria.

Constance Gore-Booth hoped to study art, and finally persuaded her disapproving parents to fund her studies in 1893, when she enrolled at the Slade School of Art, in London. Having moved to Paris to further her studies she met fellow art student Count Casimir Dunin-Markievicz, a Polish widower whose family owned land in the Ukraine. They married in London in 1900 and their daughter, Maeve, was born the following year. Constance Markievicz's relationship with her daughter was strained; the couple returned to Paris in 1902, leaving their daughter in the care of Lady Gore-Booth. The child's family was reunited when her parents moved to Dublin, but from about 1908 she lived almost exclusively with her grandparents at Lissadell House.

The Markieviczes' move to Dublin coincided with a period of literary and cultural renaissance, and they soon became involved in the city's liveliest artistic circles, displaying their paintings and producing and acting in plays at the Abbey Theatre. They co-founded the United Arts Club in 1907 but Constance Markievicz's interest in Irish nationalism soon took precedence over her artistic ambitions. She joined Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) in 1908 and helped to found—and became a regular contributor to—Bean na hÉireann (‘Women of Ireland’), Ireland's first women's nationalist journal. She had become interested in women's suffrage as a young woman, presiding in 1896 over a meeting of the Sligo Women's Suffrage Society; she remained committed to this cause but she gave increasing time to overtly nationalist organizations.

Markievicz became something of a celebrity in Dublin's radical circles. A strident and flamboyant orator, her background and penchant for military uniforms and weaponry made her a figure of fun in some circles, while attracting deep suspicion in others. In 1909 she founded Na Fianna Éireann, a youth movement whose aims included establishing an independent Ireland and promoting the Irish language. By 1911 she had become an executive member of both Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, and was arrested in the same year for protesting against George V's visit to Dublin. She grew increasingly interested in socialism and trade unionism, becoming a strong supporter of the Irish Women Workers' Union and of the political programme advocated by the prominent socialist James Connolly. She assisted striking workers during the lock-out of 1913, organizing soup kitchens in Dublin slums and at Liberty Hall. Strongly opposed to Irish involvement in the allied war effort, she co-founded the Irish Neutrality League in 1914 and became a vocal advocate of the small group of men who split from the nationalist Volunteer movement over the question of Irish participation in the war. She had separated amicably from her husband about 1909; while he worked as a war correspondent in the Balkans she continued to assist in training and mobilizing the Irish Citizen Army and the Fianna.

Markievicz made no secret of her support for armed rebellion against British forces, and joined whole-heartedly in the Irish Citizen Army's involvement in the Easter rising of 1916. She was second in command of a troop of Irish Citizen Army combatants at St Stephen's Green; her battalion was hopelessly outmanoeuvred by British soldiers and was forced to retreat to the College of Surgeons. After a week of intense fighting Markievicz and her fellow rebels surrendered. She was sentenced to death for her part in the rebellion but this was commuted to penal servitude for life on account of her sex. She served fourteen months of her sentence at Aylesbury gaol before being released in the general amnesty of June 1917. She claimed to have experienced an epiphany during the Easter rising, took instruction from a priest while in prison, and converted to Catholicism shortly after her release.

In 1918 Markievicz was arrested along with many fellow Sinn Féin members on account of their alleged involvement in a spurious ‘German plot’. While in prison she stood successfully in the general election of 1918 as a Sinn Féin candidate for Dublin's St Patrick's division, and became the first woman elected to the British parliament; like all Sinn Féin MPs she refused to take her seat. Released from gaol in March 1919 she was appointed secretary for labour in the first Dáil Éireann, but like her colleagues in the proscribed Dáil she spent much of her time on the run. She was arrested again in June for making a seditious speech, and was sentenced to four months' hard labour—her third prison term in four years. After another arrest a sentence of two years' hard labour in the following year was interrupted by the general amnesty that followed the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty. A vocal opponent of the treaty, she denounced it in the Dáil and continued to work against it through Cumann na mBan, a republican women's organization of which she was president.

Markievicz's stand against the treaty forced her into another period of exile and abstention from the Dáil. She publicized the anti-treaty position during a speaking tour of America and through several publications in which she continued to extol the republican cause. Markievicz lost her seat in the general Dáil election of 1922 but was elected to the Free State parliament in August 1923. In common with other elected republicans she refused to take the oath of allegiance to the king, thus disqualifying herself from sitting. Her characteristic flamboyance—she insisted, for example, on wearing her Cumann na mBan uniform while addressing the Dáil—and an increasingly hostile general attitude to female politicians ensured that she was viewed with growing suspicion by a number of her fellow republicans. She was arrested for the last time in November 1923 but was released soon after she went on hunger strike in protest. She joined Fianna Fáil on its establishment in 1926 and stood successfully as a candidate for the new party in the general election of 1927. She remained an outspoken republican but her influence waned and her health suffered as a result of hard work and often rough conditions. She died, of peritonitis, in a public ward at Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital in Dublin on 15 July 1927, and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery in the city, following a well-attended public funeral.

TheRedDevil10 wrote: »

Anyone know ?

CDfm

So this woman may have been her role model

This may be Benjamin Leigh Smith, the polar explorer and brother of Barbara Leigh Smith Bodicon, artist and female activist, who was rescued by Sir Henry Gore Booth during an Arctic expedition in 1882.

And has anyone ever seen any paintings by the Countess.

Its at times like this I wish that more women posted here.

pedroeibar1

CDfm wrote: »

So this woman may have been her role model


And has anyone ever seen any paintings by the Countess.

Its at times like this I wish that more women posted here.

There are a few of them about half way down the page here http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/exhibition.php

Her father Sir Henry's Arctic passages in his yacht 'Kara' were written up in the yachting press of the day. Unlike many others of that era he sailed the boat himself (he was a master mariner) and was a member of the Royal Afred YC in Dublin. Not sure about post-sale Lissadell, but years ago there were were walrus tusts, skis, snow-shoes , harpoons, etc. on view.

CDfm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

There are a few of them about half way down the page here http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/exhibition.php

.

Great.

There are some similarities between her and Charlotte Despard, sister of Field Marshall French background wise.

There is a bit of me that thinks that the Countess was a bit of a champagne socialist (as in once suffrage was achieved), am I being fair ?

She did support DeValera entering the Dail when she was not in the best of health so she definitely pushed the democracy envelope.

meganj

CDfm wrote: »

There is a bit of me that thinks that the Countess was a bit of a champagne socialist (as in once suffrage was achieved), am I being fair ?

I don't know that she was a 'champagne socialist'. I'm presuming by this you mean that once suffrage was achieved she had little interest in either suffrage or socialism?

It always struck me that the Countess was not a suffragette and in studying both her and her sister, it has always seemed to me that Eva was (obviously) the more interested in the suffrage movement and that the Countess was more influenced by her sisters strong opinions then by her own desire.

That said, the Countess was of that time that for many, the Republic was the be all and end all. The common cry of 'Labour Must Wait' signalled the belief that the most important thing was to get the country back, then we could decide what to do with it. I think in that way she was a not a devout socialist because she was willing to set her socialism aside if it meant a republic, and the same seems to have applied to the suffrage movement.

CDfm

I don't really know if I like the "Countess" and I did.

She liked her drama but also her nice lifestyle.

More frequently he lodged in 49b Leinster Road, Rathmines, (a.k.a Surrey House) the home of Constance Markievicz where several of her colleagues in the Fianna organisation also lived. (James Larkin hid in this house after he was arrested on 28 August 1913 and before he addressed the crowd from The Imperial Hotel on Sackville Street on 31 august. The house also served as Connolly’s and Markievicz’s office for The Spark and The Workers’ Republic which was also printed here.)

http://comeheretome.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/james-connollys-dublin-addresses/

Her life seemed all over the place .

http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/marriage.php

franc 91

I think calling her 'a champagne socialist' is a mistake - she showed enormous courage and detemination, she was directly and actively involved in what she believed in. She frequently had to face danger and death - don't forget she was one of those who were due to be shot for her active role in the Easter Rising. Even later on in her life, she went out to Wicklow and single-handed went and loaded her car up with peat for the needy in Dublin. She was sentenced to hard labour because she stood up against her own social class, something which, in today's society we would find difficult to appreciate. She was very close to her sister, who was not only a suffragette but who threw herself into what we would now call social work - all this was virtually unthinkable for the daughters of a wealthy family at the time.

CDfm

She is alleged to have shot the unarmed Constable Michael Lahiff, who she knew, and it seems that his family believe her to be his killer.

And she may have collected for the poor but didn't spend time with her daughter.

http://www.sligoheritage.com/ArchMaeveMarkievicz.htm

meganj

CDfm wrote: »

And she may have collected for the poor but didn't spend time with her daughter.

http://www.sligoheritage.com/ArchMaeveMarkievicz.htm

That article just says that Maeve was sent to live with her grandmother and that Markievicz visited often.

It's not uncommon for children (of that time) to be sent to live with grandparents, and she then went on to boarding school, which once again wouldn't have been uncommon and hardly invalidates Markievicz' contribution to the poor.

CDfm

meganj wrote: »

That article just says that Maeve was sent to live with her grandmother and that Markievicz visited often.

It's not uncommon for children (of that time) to be sent to live with grandparents, and she then went on to boarding school, which once again wouldn't have been uncommon and hardly invalidates Markievicz' contribution to the poor.

The child was brought up by her grandparents.

I have read up on Markievicz and I imagine that IRL she is a type of character I would avoid.

Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, on the other hand, is someone who made a greater contribution and is less recognised than Madame Markievicz or Maude Gonne.

I had expected to like her but don't.

meganj

CDfm wrote: »

The child was brought up by her grandparents.

And??

CDfm wrote: »

Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, on the other hand, is someone who made a greater contribution and is less recognised than Madame Markievicz or Maude Gonne.

HSS was (and is) hugely recognisable. Not just in this country either.

The fact that she is not (in your opinion) as recognised as Markievicz or Gonne probably boils down to one thing: the Abbey. The importance of the cultural revolution cannot be overlooked, both Markievicz and Gonne played a huge role in this.

I would be less concerned with why HSS isn't recognisable and more concerned with the many other women overlooked in the telling of Republican History, Elizabeth O'Farrell is just one woman who was literally erased from the Rising.

CDfm wrote: »

I had expected to like her but don't.

You had expected to like her? Sorry, but what has that got to do with anything?

CDfm

meganj wrote: »

And??

Nothing, my value system.

HSS was (and is) hugely recognisable. Not just in this country either.

The fact that she is not (in your opinion) as recognised as Markievicz or Gonne probably boils down to one thing: the Abbey. The importance of the cultural revolution cannot be overlooked, both Markievicz and Gonne played a huge role in this.

I would be less concerned with why HSS isn't recognisable and more concerned with the many other women overlooked in the telling of Republican History, Elizabeth O'Farrell is just one woman who was literally erased from the Rising.

Oh yes, I agree and have often added in detail where possible

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70366543

I am a big HSS fan and when I posted here about her few knew her or were aware of Anna Haslam.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056265715

You had expected to like her? Sorry, but what has that got to do with anything?

Ah well, it helps when reading up on someone that you like them.

Bannasidhe

CDfm wrote: »

Nothing, my value system.




Oh yes, I agree and have often added in detail where possible

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70366543

I am a big HSS fan and when I posted here about her few knew her or were aware of Anna Haslam.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056265715








Ah well, it helps when reading up on someone that you like them.

TBH - I don't see what liking her has to do with it. Do you 'like' every historical figure you read about?


I also think that to use the fact that Meave was raised by her grandparent's to criticise Constance is sexist in the extreme - Did Meave not have a father?

Tom Clarke (born on the Isle of Wight where his father was in the British Army btw) had 3 children - who cared for them when he spent 15 years in prison?
what did he think would happen to them after he was executed?

Connolly (born in Edinburgh) had children. Apart from Nora, how many people here can name any of them or say what happened to them?

MacBride never saw his son Sean after his separation from Gonne - does that negate what he did - which was a hell of a lot less then Con?

It always annoys me that Constance is measured by a different standard to her male compatriots and the same old sexist crap is trotted out to criticise her.

Have a read of Diana Norman's Terrible Beauty. An excellent work on her. She bankrupted herself not just providing funds for nationalist movements but also in donating money to feed Dublin's poor. She suffered chronic ill health due to the treatment she was subjected to in prison - including forced feedings while she was on hunger strike. She was no champagne socialist and although often dismissed as a dilettante by her critics - I think this says more about them then her. Her actions show her to have been a woman who put her life and wealth to the service of the marginalised in Ireland - women, children and the poor.




Eva Gore-Booth was a lesbian - in a relationship with Esther Roper (see
Challenging Presumptions of Heterosexuality:Eva Gore-Booth, A Biographical Case Study by Sonja Teirnan http://lhu.academia.edu/httpwwwhopeacukstaffindextiernashtml/Papers/841339/Challenging_Presumptions_of_Heterosexuality_Eva_Gore-Booth_A_Biographical_Case_Study - and of fragile health her whole life. There can be no doubt that Eva's work among slum dwellers in Manchester was the cause of her early death.

The Gore-Booth sisters were exceptional women and we should be celebrating them as Irish icons and examples of true self-sacrifice and socialism in action.

CDfm

Did Meave not have a father?

I don't think much of him either.

And, I am not using sexist crap to make my assessment of her . WB Yeats portrayed Maud Gonne in his letters as a bit of a nutter.

And, the financial demise of the Gore-Booths was something she may not have predicted. It wasn't earned money that she had and the family depleted their UK property portfolio.

She didn't join the Communist Party with Charlotte Despard. So I suppose that she didn't join the Stalin Fan Club visiting Russia is a plus.

All I a saying is that I do not like her and expected to but don't and I am trying to get a handle on her belief system but can't. I am left with the impression that she liked the drama associated with what she was doing.

MarchDub

Bannasidhe wrote: »

TBH - I don't see what liking her has to do with it. Do you 'like' every historical figure you read about?


I also think that to use the fact that Meave was raised by her grandparent's to criticise Constance is sexist in the extreme - Did Meave not have a father?

Tom Clarke (born on the Isle of Wight where his father was in the British Army btw) had 3 children - who cared for them when he spent 15 years in prison?
what did he think would happen to them after he was executed?

Connolly (born in Edinburgh) had children. Apart from Nora, how many people here can name any of them or say what happened to them?

MacBride never saw his son Sean after his separation from Gonne - does that negate what he did - which was a hell of a lot less then Con?

It always annoys me that Constance is measured by a different standard to her male compatriots and the same old sexist crap is trotted out to criticise her.

I have to say that I agree 100% with you on this issue Bannasidhe - Constance frequently gets viewed through a different prism, good mother, bad mother, likable, not likable. pushy etc..

Too often women get looked closely at if they have 'lives' that don't involve putting their children at the centre but men invariably get a pass on that...

pedroeibar1

Bannasidhe wrote: »

TBH - I don't see what liking her has to do with it. Do you 'like' every historical figure you read about?


I also think that to use the fact that Meave was raised by her grandparent's to criticise Constance is sexist in the extreme - Did Meave not have a father?

Tom Clarke (born on the Isle of Wight where his father was in the British Army btw) had 3 children - who cared for them when he spent 15 years in prison?
what did he think would happen to them after he was executed?

Connolly (born in Edinburgh) had children. Apart from Nora, how many people here can name any of them or say what happened to them?

MacBride never saw his son Sean after his separation from Gonne - does that negate what he did - which was a hell of a lot less then Con?

It always annoys me that Constance is measured by a different standard to her male compatriots and the same old sexist crap is trotted out to criticise her.

Have a read of Diana Norman's Terrible Beauty. An excellent work on her. She bankrupted herself not just providing funds for nationalist movements but also in donating money to feed Dublin's poor. She suffered chronic ill health due to the treatment she was subjected to in prison - including forced feedings while she was on hunger strike. She was no champagne socialist and although often dismissed as a dilettante by her critics - I think this says more about them then her. Her actions show her to have been a woman who put her life and wealth to the service of the marginalised in Ireland - women, children and the poor.

Eva Gore-Booth was a lesbian - in a relationship with Esther Roper (see
Challenging Presumptions of Heterosexuality:Eva Gore-Booth, A Biographical Case Study by Sonja Teirnanhttp://lhu.academia.edu/httpwwwhopeacukstaffindextiernashtml/Papers/841339/Challenging_Presumptions_of_Heterosexuality_Eva_Gore-Booth_A_Biographical_Case_Study - and of fragile health her whole life. There can be no doubt that Eva's work among slum dwellers in Manchester was the cause of her early death.

The Gore-Booth sisters were exceptional women and we should be celebrating them as Irish icons and examples of true self-sacrifice and socialism in action.

I wonder about those comments.
Both women were paid allowances by the family, that cash was unearned by them, and their outlook was rather typical of the ‘chip on the shoulder’ variety borne by those of the upper middle classes in later decades. Bringing a bag of turf in the family motor from the bogs of Wicklow is hardly an economic use of anything, and if it is done in a showy way with attendant publicty it leaves the motives open to question. Yes they were a bit ahead of their time, but typical of the later variety from Ballsbridge / Foxrock / Montenotte in NUI & TCD back in my day – Social Studies, unable to come to terms with the cash from daddy and the privileged background. Constance was a primadonna, loved the publicity, and murdered an unarmed policeman. Not something to be proud of in my view.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Eva Gore-Booth was a lesbian - in a relationship with Esther Roper

So what? Why should that make her special? I value my homosexual friends for the people they are, not for their sexuality.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

.... we should be celebrating them as Irish icons and examples of true self-sacrifice and socialism in action.

Why should I? Why would this type of comment not conversely apply to William Martin Murphy, him being an icon of the capitalist in action variety? And he certainly left a much nore concrete legacy.

As for ‘liking’ a historical figure, well, for me, having a feeling one way or the other sharpens my critique.
Madeleine ffrench-Mullen (from a similar background) along with Kathleen Lynn were much more worthy figures, achieved a lot more with for e.g. St. Ultans, and did not go around shooting unarmed people in cold blood.

CDfm

There is almost something of the Bloomsbury Set about the Gaiety Group and its associates.

MarchDub

Just to note that the shooting of the policeman is a controversial issue and historians are not by any means agreed on its validity.

Markievicz's biographer Diana Norman researched the claim - made after M was arrested - and concluded that it was a completely unsubstantiated rumour which, for whatever reason, was frequently repeated. There's insufficient evidence from all I have read to really establish this with certainty.

CDfm

Is what your saying is that it is "not proven" ?

A bit of a Scottish verdict. Here is a picture of Constable Lahiff's grave.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/floweringwoman/4293366982/

I know its not a great source, but wikipedia have the actor Patrick J Donnelly's granny despising Constance Markievicz for her role in their relatives death. He is potrayed as a nationalist supporter of Redmond and someone who would have known her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Norton3600/sandbox/Patrick_J._Donnelly

The general idea of armed rebellion is shooting , so MD what are you asking me to believe here. We have unarmed policemen and civilians getting shot ? She commanded.

Her command of the Royal College of Surgeon's is her claim to fame and we also have her having tea with the head gardener at Stephen's Green.

The Rising was not a military success in the way the War of Independence in West Cork was.

EDIT - You don't suppose her giving her property away and collecting turf was atonement for the civiloan deaths in 1916. Most people don't know that more civilian's died than rebels or British forces.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

Is what your saying is that it is "not proven" ?

A bit of a Scottish verdict.

We're talking about historiographical research here. I was pointing out that it is a controversial issue and not by any means an established historic fact. I am saying that from a historical studies point of view - the original source material that would establish it beyond rumour - or 'myth' as another thread describes such issues - has not been found and that it cannot therefore be referred to with historic certainty.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

We're talking about historiographical research here. I was pointing out that it is a controversial issue and not by any means an established historic fact. I am saying that from a historical studies point of view - the original source material that would establish it beyond rumour - or 'myth' as another thread describes such issues - has not been found and that it cannot therefore be referred to with historic certainty.

It is a controversial issue and we do know that M, as you affectionately call her, left home that day armed and ready for battle.

We know that Constable Lahiff was not armed.

We also know that one of the first casualties was another unarmed policeman shot by Sean (?) Connolly a comrade of M's & who himself died in the GPO.

So being an unarmed policeman was to be treated as a fair target.

Casualties
64 Rebels Killed, 120 Wounded
British Army and Police 132 Killed, 397 Wounded
Civilians 300 Killed, 2,000 Wounded.

http://www.irishtourist.com/general_information/history_of_ireland/1916_easter_rising.shtml

People don't know where DeV was when Michael Collins was killled or who killed Noel Lemass. We know who shot Collins and his brothers knew who shot him. We know there were no reprisals.

So not knowing is not a problem here.

M was engaged in gaining control of Stephen's Green and was in charge and in doing so an unarmed policeman who held the keys for the green was shot in the head and killed. We know that M had tea with the head gardiner and commandeered the gatekeepers lodge.

Unarmed policemen and civilians were killed and wounded and some of them by the rebel's.

We also know that the rising was not a popular one and even Patrick Pearse's sister wanted him home. Willie Pearse's elder step-brother felt guilty for not doing enough to keep him out of harm's way.

We do not know how many civilian's were killed or wounded by the rebel's.

In this context, it is fair to say that whether or not M actually fired the shot , Michael Lahiff was shot by someone under her command procuring the keys to Stephen's Green and she proceeded to take it over and the RCS using force of arm's.

She also fired shots at British soldiers with the intention of killing them.

I don't know why people are reticent in discussing her involvement and it does not harm her feminist credential's at all to do so.

pedroeibar1

Constance drove up to St Stephen’s Green, arriving near the University of Dublin between 1 and 2pm. Members of the University Club claimed that Constance fired on a figure in a khaki uniform in the window of the Club. This figure was Dr de Burgh Daly, then a medical officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He recalled that he had been standing in the window talking to a Mr Best (who later became Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland) who exclaimed "Look out! There is a woman on the Green pointing a gun at us."
A bullet cracked between the two men, through a window which was slightly raised, striking neither. Evidence was given at Constance’s trial by a page boy attached to the University Club of this event. It has been rumoured that it was here that Constance in fact shot a policeman in cold blood. No such charge was ever brought against her, and her brother Josslyn attempted without success to track the rumour to its source. When in prison she denied the rumour (Lissadell Papers, PRONI). Interestingly, de Burgh Daly’s wife confirms the incident involving her husband and the death of a policeman, but puts the policeman at the Harcourt Street end of St Stephen’s Green, and not by the Club where rumour placed the policeman.

Taken from the Lissadell site. http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/politics.php - owners Eddie Walsh & Constance Cassidy are unabashed Markievicz fans, and obviously would see her in the most positive light. The Club in question was (and still is) at 17, St. Stephens Green. M was perfectly capable of using a sidearm....

CDfm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Taken from the Lissadell site. http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/politics.php - owners Eddie Walsh & Constance Cassidy are unabashed Markievicz fans, and obviously would see her in the most positive light. The Club in question was (and still is) at 17, St. Stephens Green. M was perfectly capable of using a sidearm....

If I am not mistaken she trained the Fianna on firearms use.

MarchDub

Quoting opinions, secondary or tertiary or sources - whether they are favourable or not favourable sources - does not establish historic fact. It just stirs the cauldron. That is what I am saying -

The incident was being treated and quoted on thread as if it were a well established and accepted historic fact. It is not. That's the point I am making.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

Quoting opinions, secondary or tertiary or sources - whether they are favourable or not favourable sources - does not establish historic fact. It just stirs the cauldron. That is what I am saying -

The incident was being treated and quoted on thread as if it were a well established and accepted historic fact. It is not. That's the point I am making.

Nobody has called her "the Killer Contessa" ......yet .

It just stirs the cauldron.

When we talk about the Rising it is myth unless you include the actions.

The War of Independence my grandfathers fought in was not this cultural international one and one of my grandfathers regarded the 1916 leaders as poets and dreamers.

I mean even today you get the Dunmanway Massacre discussed as part of the Hart book and his sectarian theory whereas you don't get it discussed in terms of Marxist based revolutionaries who were floating around at that time.

So how do you describe the death of Michael Lahiff and M or do you ignore it.

Bannasidhe

Of course M left her house armed on the morning on the Rising - she was about to engage in an armed insurrection - did all the other combatants leave the house with nowt but a couple of ham sangwiches and a flask of tea?

I, for one, have no problem discussing her political and military record - nor will I deny she was a member of several paramilitary organisations - as where her male fellow revolutionaries. So why is it noteworthy that she was armed but not that Connolly, Pearse, Dev, etc were?

The complaint is made that it is hard to pin down her beliefs - I disagree. Her beliefs are obvious, what they are not is single issue - with that issue being Irish Independence. Once again, this is used as a stick to beat her and accuse her of being a Dilettante. I would argue that she was one of the few Irish revolutionaries who was not of a single track mind and recognised that Irish independence would not be the magic bullet that lead to automatic freedom and an better life for the Irish people. Her choices show she knew that women, children and the poor were marginalised in a way that required specific actions to be taken on their behalf - an independent Ireland was meaningless if it resulted in the status quo being maintained with a different set of elite snouts in the trough. She was proven right. Perhaps that is why she, herself, has been vilified.

She was active in women's causes from the age of 24. It was her involvement in campaigning to gain equal rights for women which led her to believe an independent Ireland was the best option, as Connolly believed it was the only way to gain worker's rights.

In 1892 she joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in London. Why London? Because she could not go to art college in Dublin due to a gender bar.
In 1908 she joined both Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann - here we see the union of the existing feminism with her growing nationalism.

The same year she was part of a Suffergist campaign against Winston Churchill in Manchester - her sister Eva and Esther Roper also took part.
And yes, Eva's sexuality is important for the simple reason that in 1908 she was an 'out' lesbian - women had few legal rights and little legal protections to allow them to control their own lives. For Eva to be a vocal and visible campaigner for the rights of women while also declaring that she had no interest in ever settling down with a man (who would 'protect' and 'mind' her according to the social mores of the day) was an act of stunning bravery. She broke every convention of her society and lived with the consequences.

In 1909,M founded the Fianna Éireann - a paramilitary organisation based on the scouts which trained boys and girls in the use of arms.

She joined the Irish Citizen's Army on it's foundation - the only nationalist paramilitary force that gave women equal status.

In 1914, she was the commander of the ICA unit that met the Asgard at Howth.

In 1916, She was second in command to Mallin (the father of 4 young children and an experienced solider) at Stephen's Green and the Royal College of Surgeons where they survived, under siege, for 6 days - only surrendering when they saw a copy of Pearse's surrender. She was sentenced to death for her role in the Rising - this was commuted to life in prison on the grounds of gender.

She was the first woman elected to Westminster with a 66% share of the vote in an inner city Dublin constituency. But no doubt, some will say that she was elected due to being the SF candidate not due to anything she had done to deserve it - one could also say the same about the other 72 SF candidates elected that year.

From April 1919 to Jan 1922 she was the minister for Labour - was this a 'sop' to women or because she was only one alive with a track record of advocating for the working class?

She fought in the Civil War on the Republican side.

I think her politics are out there for all to see and she never hid them. She is pilloried for the crime of being a stroppy woman who would not shut up.

As for the comments re: Kathleen Lynn, HSS, Haslam etc - are we allowed only one wonderful Irish woman a generation? Must we choose only one or can we recognise that many, many women played significant roles and discuss that without having to mention whether they had children, wore evening gowns on occasion or even, gasp, actually had a gun during an armed revolution...

meganj

CDfm wrote: »

There is almost something of the Bloomsbury Set about the Gaiety Group and its associates.

Do you mean the Abbey Group? (Not be a bitch here, just would have always linked the Abbey with the people we're talking about here, not the Gaiety)

In a way I agree with you. I personally adore the cultural revolution that occurred alongside the actual revolution. I think it was hugely important. But... the idea of Markievicz and Gonne prancing around the stage as some version of Eire does not exactly please me and for me very much mirrors what the Bloomsbury group became in it's appearance as just a load of rich people sitting around with what we now call 'first world problems'.

There was a distance between the 'ordinary' irish and the Abbey set, of course there were, the working class had to work after all not sit around writing or producing plays. But I suppose, in most cultural revolutions that's what happens, and no one can diminish the importance of our Abbey set, certainly I would feel that they were much much more then what the Bloomsbury set were.

Bannasidhe

meganj wrote: »

Do you mean the Abbey Group? (Not be a bitch here, just would have always linked the Abbey with the people we're talking about here, not the Gaiety)

In a way I agree with you. I personally adore the cultural revolution that occurred alongside the actual revolution. I think it was hugely important. But... the idea of Markievicz and Gonne prancing around the stage as some version of Eire does not exactly please me and for me very much mirrors what the Bloomsbury group became in it's appearance as just a load of rich people sitting around with what we now call 'first world problems'.

There was a distance between the 'ordinary' irish and the Abbey set, of course there were, the working class had to work after all not sit around writing or producing plays. But I suppose, in most cultural revolutions that's what happens, and no one can diminish the importance of our Abbey set, certainly I would feel that they were much much more then what the Bloomsbury set were.

Don't forget it was the Abbey which first produced O Casey's Shadow of a Gunman in 1923, Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926). The latter was the subject of a riot by the audience - who were, presumably, mainly Dubliners.

The Abbey set were part of a wider cultural movement which aimed to reawaken Irish identity - the Gaelic League and the GAA were other powerful branches. Now, while I have - and still do - rant against the Celtic Twilight nonsense that later dominated some of the cultural discourse - there were also positive legacies - some of which grew out of the Ascendency recognising their Irishness and revelling in it - the likes of the Yeats brothers raised Ireland's cultural profile to a thing of high art.

In 1916, as in 1846, the entire population of Ireland did not consist of rural/urban poor - there was also a sizeable middle class and yes - an upper class. Did the middle and upper classes not also have the right to discuss, debate and participate in the formation of this new State? Is it only the poor who have a legitimate viewpoint? To dismiss something because it's participants were well off seems like another form of elitism to me.


The Abbey gave voice to all of these groups - from Gregory to O Casey. Nothing like the Bloomsbury Set IMHO.

Bannasidhe

Could our founding father's have possibly been sexist - hence the vilification of Markievicz - surely not?????

POLITICIANS Éamon de Valera and John Dillon had a jaundiced view of the women’s suffrage movement, historians recounted at a lecture in Belfast.

“Women’s suffrage will be the ruin of our western civilisation,” Dillon, an MP and deputy leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, told a suffrage deputation 100 years ago, according to Dr Rosemary Cullen-Owens, in her talk in the series, A Decade of Anniversaries 2012-2023.

“Éamon de Valera once remarked to a researcher that women were ‘the boldest and most unmanageable revolutionaries’,” added Dr Margaret Ward in the lecture on Wednesday night, at Stranmillis College, on the women’s movement from 1910-1922.

“Was he haunted by the fact that women from Cumann na mBan had assembled for service outside his Boland’s Mill outpost in 1916, only to be told by him, the commander of the outpost, to go home as this was no place for women?” asked Dr Ward, director of the Women’s Resource and Development Agency in Belfast.

“The Easter Week proclamation had affirmed women’s equal rights and Irish suffragist Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington declared that it was the first time that men fighting for freedom had voluntarily included women,” she said.

“Feminist hopes were high in 1916, but in the aftermath of defeat and, in particular, the loss of James Connolly, who had given wholehearted and unequivocal support to the Irish suffragettes, republican and feminist women were confronted with a much less egalitarian future,” she added.

“The final defeat of their hopes came with the Irish Constitution of 1937 – so much of which reflected the personal philosophy of Éamon de Valera – which insisted that women’s place was in the home,” said Dr Ward.

Dr Cullen-Owens, who lectures on women’s history at UCD, said the issue of Home Rule dogged the path of women’s suffrage.

“From 1910 the Irish Parliamentary Party, under John Redmond, held the balance of power at Westminster and Home Rule seemed assured,” she said.

Dr Cullen-Owens said Redmond and British prime minister HH Asquith were against women’s suffrage. This prompted the Irish Women’s Franchise League to respond militantly, she added.

From June 1912 until the outbreak of the first World War in July 1914, 35 women were convicted for suffrage militancy – 22 in Dublin and 13 in Ulster.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0427/1224315234076.html

CDfm

meganj wrote: »

Do you mean the Abbey Group? (Not be a bitch here, just would have always linked the Abbey with the people we're talking about here, not the Gaiety)

Yup -it was the Abbey Set , what was I thinking -my this thread is getting racy

In a way I agree with you. I personally adore the cultural revolution that occurred alongside the actual revolution. I think it was hugely important. But... the idea of Markievicz and Gonne prancing around the stage as some version of Eire does not exactly please me and for me very much mirrors what the Bloomsbury group became in it's appearance as just a load of rich people sitting around with what we now call 'first world problems'.

There was a distance between the 'ordinary' irish and the Abbey set, of course there were, the working class had to work after all not sit around writing or producing plays. But I suppose, in most cultural revolutions that's what happens, and no one can diminish the importance of our Abbey set, certainly I would feel that they were much much more then what the Bloomsbury set were.

I find them a difficult crowd to warm to.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Don't forget it was the Abbey which first produced O Casey's Shadow of a Gunman in 1923, Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926). The latter was the subject of a riot by the audience - who were, presumably, mainly Dubliners.

The Abbey set were part of a wider cultural movement which aimed to reawaken Irish identity - the Gaelic League and the GAA were other powerful branches. Now, while I have - and still do - rant against the Celtic Twilight nonsense that later dominated some of the cultural discourse - there were also positive legacies - some of which grew out of the Ascendency recognising their Irishness and revelling in it - the likes of the Yeats brothers raised Ireland's cultural profile to a thing of high art.

In 1916, as in 1846, the entire population of Ireland did not consist of rural/urban poor - there was also a sizeable middle class and yes - an upper class. Did the middle and upper classes not also have the right to discuss, debate and participate in the formation of this new State? Is it only the poor who have a legitimate viewpoint? To dismiss something because it's participants were well off seems like another form of elitism to me.


The Abbey gave voice to all of these groups - from Gregory to O Casey. Nothing like the Bloomsbury Set IMHO.

Culturally, I feel the ghost of Peig Sayers breathing down y neck and not Yeats with "Two girls in silk kimonos, both / beautiful, one a gazelle." Brrrrrrr.

Nicely sidestepped away from Madame M's body count.


I am curious about her beliefs and have often asked questions that get very vaguest answers , such as, were Connolly and Markievicz democrats? So on that part I really wonder where our "political heritage" comes from. I sort of think you have a bunch of people wanting to replace the "ascendency" with themselves. "Corporate State" like.

I have just thought that the Fianna Fail name might even be a homage to the Fianna.

But back on track. the women of 1916, on your earlier post, I would love to see more on her military record and that of the other women in 1916. Lets be having it.

(I would also like to see how the rebel's treated civilians, so if you feel the need to include Pearse, Connolly etc as comparitor's sure)

And, I don't think the women of the era get a fair shake in this but also I don't feel the extreme political beliefs that some of the rebel's held are pointed out either.

CDfm

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Could our founding father's have possibly been sexist - hence the vilification of Markievicz - surely not?????



http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0427/1224315234076.html

That's why Dev had M beside him entering the Dail.

She scared people

meganj

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Don't forget it was the Abbey which first produced O Casey's Shadow of a Gunman in 1923, Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926). The latter was the subject of a riot by the audience - who were, presumably, mainly Dubliners.

But of course. But for me, O'Casey is separate to the cultural nationalism of Yeats and Gonne, because for O'Casey the brutality was always there, the romanticism that many people used (and still use) to excuse their pettiness, their own personal vendettas and the violence they perpetrated. While I'm not saying that the martyrs of 1916 or the men and women who fought in the WOI were all like this, it's important to note that there was an element of this romanticism excusing the negatives of the struggle. Which is why people rioted, they did not like the portrayal of themselves, or their struggle and who can blame them.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

In 1916, as in 1846, the entire population of Ireland did not consist of rural/urban poor - there was also a sizeable middle class and yes - an upper class. Did the middle and upper classes not also have the right to discuss, debate and participate in the formation of this new State? Is it only the poor who have a legitimate viewpoint? To dismiss something because it's participants were well off seems like another form of elitism to me.

You are right of course, there were not just poor republicans. But, society at the time was society at the time. The poor were largely uneducated and Ireland has had a history of being guided by educated (and yes ascendency class) revolutionaries. Up until the WOI, or in the aftermath of the Rising, most of the rebellions had been stirred up or perpetrated by the ascendency class. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for this of course, but what I was trying to say earlier was not that because they were upper class they had no right to be involved, but because they were upper class they were automatically separate to the workers. Maybe this doesn't apply as much in the 1916 aftermath, but it certainly did in the earlier rebellions.

CDfm wrote: »

...Such as, were Connolly and Markievicz democrats? So on that part I really wonder where our "political heritage" comes from. I sort of think you have a bunch of people wanting to replace the "ascendency" with themselves. "Corporate State" like.

Connolly was a socialist, as was Markievicz (although Marki's (yes Marki) seems to have been less of an ideology, and more of a horror at how the world was, if you follow me? Connolly wanted a socialist state, he saw the capitalist system as a foreign entity.

If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.

CDfm wrote: »

But back on track. the women of 1916, on your earlier post, I would love to see more on her military record and that of the other women in 1916. Lets be having it.

Wouldn't we all? Unfortunately very little of it exists. As with much of the 1916 Rising much of it has been glamorized, revised and changed by not just the Irish but the English. I do remember (an anecdote is not history I know) a friend who studied in Belfast saying that for her A-Levels Marki was portrayed as a weeping sniveling woman, who begged not to be executed, which is obviously a marked difference from how we remember her.

By and large I think the women of 1916 are greatly overlooked, but the entire Rising, IMHO, has now moved from history to myth. Most of the women involved carried weapons, letters and execution orders, because they were less likely to be searched. There was a wonderful book which I have at home, I'll dig out the name of it, about an 'ordinary' woman involved in the WOI.

CDfm wrote: »

And, I don't think the women of the era get a fair shake in this but also I don't feel the extreme political beliefs that some of the rebel's held are pointed out either.

But of course not. Because the 1916 leaders were martyred, no one wants to discuss their political beliefs and because they essentially came out of nowhere, there is little but their own records and the glamorization of them as people to go on.

Bannasidhe

CDfm wrote: »

Yup -it was the Abbey Set , what was I thinking -my this thread is getting racy



I find them a difficult crowd to warm to.





Culturally, I feel the ghost of Peig Sayers breathing down y neck and not Yeats with "Two girls in silk kimonos, both / beautiful, one a gazelle." Brrrrrrr.

Nicely sidestepped away from Madame M's body count.


I am curious about her beliefs and have often asked questions that get very vaguest answers , such as, were Connolly and Markievicz democrats? So on that part I really wonder where our "political heritage" comes from. I sort of think you have a bunch of people wanting to replace the "ascendency" with themselves. "Corporate State" like.

I have just thought that the Fianna Fail name might even be a homage to the Fianna.

But back on track. the women of 1916, on your earlier post, I would love to see more on her military record and that of the other women in 1916. Lets be having it.

(I would also like to see how the rebel's treated civilians, so if you feel the need to include Pearse, Connolly etc as comparitor's sure)

And, I don't think the women of the era get a fair shake in this but also I don't feel the extreme political beliefs that some of the rebel's held are pointed out either.

I would quote you chapter and verse -and will just as soon as the *&**^^$"$ I lent my copy of Women of 1916 to returns it! :mad:

Bannasidhe

CDfm wrote: »

That's why Dev had M beside him entering the Dail.

She scared people

Or he needed the support of women.

meganj

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Or he needed the support of women.

Yep. Probably needed to remake his image. He was the only leader to not allow women on site during 1916. And his comely maidens dancing at cross roads didn't sit well with many of the women that would have fought for the countries independence, they may have been comely but they certainly did more than dance.

In terms of women in the aftermath of the war, nearly all of the women present during the Dail debates on the treaty voted against it. Mrs Pearse (as she was referred to as during the debates) was adamant that it was not what her husband had died for.

I found during the Treaty debates that it was the women who had lost most in the war, and had become the most vocal opposition to the treaty.

CDfm

meganj wrote: »

Connolly was a socialist, as was Markievicz (although Marki's (yes Marki) seems to have been less of an ideology, and more of a horror at how the world was, if you follow me? Connolly wanted a socialist state, he saw the capitalist system as a foreign entity.

I am alway's interested in the democratic credentials or otherwise of those involved.

On a family holiday we visited Lissadel & her niece gave her version in a yeatsian romantic way.

Wouldn't we all? Unfortunately very little of it exists. As with much of the 1916 Rising much of it has been glamorized, revised and changed by not just the Irish but the English. I do remember (an anecdote is not history I know) a friend who studied in Belfast saying that for her A-Levels Marki was portrayed as a weeping sniveling woman, who begged not to be executed, which is obviously a marked difference from how we remember her.

Well lets see if we can uncover something.

And , if you want to do comparisons with particular men sure thing.

By and large I think the women of 1916 are greatly overlooked, but the entire Rising, IMHO........... there is little but their own records and the glamorization of them as people to go on.

I am not looking for a fanzine but the thought lurks with me that one lot of leaders wanted to replace the other.

I also am interested in the suffrage issue as much as suffragette.

The reason I am asking about civilian casualties attributable to the rebel's os that it takes the glamour off.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I would quote you chapter and verse -and will just as soon as the *&**^^$"$ I lent my copy of Women of 1916 to returns it! :mad:

Just in case you try to weasel out of it, we are looking for the smoking gun here.

meganj

CDfm wrote: »

I am not looking for a fanzine but the thought lurks with me that one lot of leaders wanted to replace the other.

But that's what I'm saying, such a thing does not exist. At least not in my research, the military archives and witness statements recorded after the war are biased in favor. The ones before, biased against.

CDfm

meganj wrote: »

But that's what I'm saying, such a thing does not exist. At least not in my research, the military archives and witness statements recorded after the war are biased in favor. The ones before, biased against.

So in that way, we are not clear about their political ideologies , other than they wanted to rule Ireland.

It is an interesting gap in the landscape alright.

And, we are still left with the situation that she had a gun and was out fighting (and presumably killing ) to be in charge.

Bannasidhe

CDfm wrote: »

So in that way, we are not clear about their political ideologies , other than they wanted to rule Ireland.

It is an interesting gap in the landscape alright.

And, we are still left with the situation that she had a gun and was out fighting (and presumably killing ) to be in charge.

Rule or participate in creating a new Ireland?

I think Marki (love it!) and Connolly were in the latter camp - they sought to help create a new Ireland based on equality. Indeed, If the 1916 Proclamation is to be believed - all of the signatories were of that opinion. There can be no doubt that both Connolly and Marki believed that women's rights and worker's rights were of primary importance.

Sadly, I think those who actually led the country into independence wanted to rule and were firmly of the opinion that their way was the best (and only) way so conflicting political viewpoints were airbrushed out of history and the voice of the ordinary people stifled and ignored.

MarchDub

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I would quote you chapter and verse -and will just as soon as the *&**^^$"$ I lent my copy of Women of 1916 to returns it! :mad:

Well in my copy of the same book, The Women of 1916, which is safely in my keeping - written by Ruth Taillon, she gives details of almost 200 women who were involved in various ways in the 1916 Rising. And she is rightly critical of how women have been left out of the historical narrative.

Over the intervening years, much of the historical and political analysis of the Rising has been reduced to a sterile debate between on the one hand those who have elevated the 1916 leaders to mythic status and the 'revisionists' who have used historical discourse as a means to attack modern day republicanism. In both cases the result has often been to create a caricature of the 1916 rebels - ... Likewise where the participation of women in the Rising has been acknowledged, it too has been largely reduced to caricature and stereotype.

In her intro Tallion attacks, rightly so in my opinion, the many historians who have ignored the role of women and the part they played in the Rising. She gives as an example Desmond Ryan whose account had the title The Complete Story of Easter Week yet only gives one paragraph - albeit complementary - to the role of women :

Pearse regarded the activities of the women in Easter Week with intense admiration. It was due to his influence as much as MacDonagh's and Connolly's that the Proclamation formally recognised the right of woman's suffrage in a free Ireland. Until almost the end the Cumann na mBan shared the dangers, the fire, the bullets, all the ordeal of the fighters, in the most dangerous areas, on the barricades, through the bullet-swept streets and the quay-sides, carrying dispatches, explosives, and ammunition through the thick of the fray, assisting in the hospital, cooking, and in some cases, approaching the British military posts to deliver warnings from Pearse that the Red Cross posts of the insurgents had been fired on by British snipers - while in the end it was a woman who marched out to initiate the final negotiations.

Taillon also addresses the fact that

"Constance Markievicz is afforded only a total of five sentences in the entire book".

Taillon states that she writes because of what she calls

"the shabby treatment by historians of the 1916 women is one reason this book is necessary".

CDfm

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Rule or participate in creating a new Ireland?


Sadly, I think those who actually led the country into independence wanted to rule and were firmly of the opinion that their way was the best (and only) way so conflicting political viewpoints were airbrushed out of history and the voice of the ordinary people stifled and ignored.

Rule ?

I think Marki (love it!)

Marxie

I was having a bit of trouble reconciling the "culchie" republicanism* of my grandfathers against the rising. Not now though.

Now it could be fun to de-mythify the rising thru the women in it.

We shouldn't be shocked that people killed because that's what armed rebels do. Nothing cute and "girlie" about that.

*The democratic tradition & the one that wanted the British to leave.

MarchDub

meganj wrote: »

Yep. Probably needed to remake his image. He was the only leader to not allow women on site during 1916. And his comely maidens dancing at cross roads didn't sit well with many of the women that would have fought for the countries independence,

You do know that he never actually said this - right?