Why was Countess Markievicz born in London ?

CDfm · 26-04-2012 1:52pm

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 · 26-04-2012 2:11pm

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 · 26-04-2012 2:39pm

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 · 27-04-2012 12:24pm

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 · 27-04-2012 12:39pm

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 · 27-04-2012 12:54pm

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 · 27-04-2012 1:29pm

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 · 27-04-2012 1:42pm

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 · 27-04-2012 1:49pm

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 · 27-04-2012 3:16pm

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 · 27-04-2012 3:24pm

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 · 27-04-2012 3:25pm

CDfm wrote: »

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

She scared people

Or he needed the support of women.

meganj · 27-04-2012 4:02pm

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 · 27-04-2012 4:23pm

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 · 27-04-2012 4:34pm

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 · 27-04-2012 4:42pm

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 · 27-04-2012 9:29pm

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 · 27-04-2012 10:27pm

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 · 27-04-2012 10:35pm

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 · 27-04-2012 10:36pm

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?

MarchDub · 27-04-2012 10:39pm

CDfm wrote: »

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

OK as a mere Dub I need a translation for this -

CDfm · 27-04-2012 10:44pm

MarchDub wrote: »

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 :

Well, I am trying to redress the balance here and take the bangs off the ears and put them back where they belong -out the barrel of a gun.

It's all very well to say we want women portrayed in equal prominence to Pearse and Connolly but not want to say what they did.

MarchDub · 27-04-2012 10:48pm

CDfm wrote: »

Well, I am trying to redress the balance here and take the bangs off the ears and put them back where they belong -out the barrel of a gun.

It's all very well to say we want women portrayed in equal prominence to Pearse and Connolly but not want to say what they did.

I don't think that's the issue at all - historical accuracy is what we need.

CDfm · 27-04-2012 11:03pm

MarchDub wrote: »

OK as a mere Dub I need a translation for this -

Well my grandfather used the phrase "poets and dreamers" and his political heritage would probably have been more Irish Independence Party than Sinn Fein.

His local heritage in West Cork would have been

http://www.ballingearyhs.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86:agrarian-disturbance-in-west-cork-1822&catid=6:journal-2000&Itemid=11

The area was poor. Neighbours in mud huts.

The Colthursts (of which Bowen-Colthurst who executed Frank S-S. was a family member) were the local landlords. Hanna S-S father would have been a local MP.

There was no romantic notions about his nationalism but also the Colthursts got burnt out and not shot. Civilians I suppose.

Their rebellion was the West Cork Flying Column.

CDfm · 27-04-2012 11:18pm

MarchDub wrote: »

I don't think that's the issue at all - historical accuracy is what we need.

OK but we have to start somewhere.

Why not start with Markievicz's Easter Week actions, the women with her and their military engagements and the military and civilian casualties. She was a leader.

MarchDub · 28-04-2012 12:14am

Maybe we need to spin off this thread to cover all the women of 1916?

The manufacture of bombs for use in a rising began in 1915. Dozens of enthusiastic women and girls worked, during their spare time, at various tasks connected with the manufacture of cartridges, bullets and bombs. The whole basement of Liberty Hall became one big munitions works.

Armaments were stockpiled all over the city. Even though it was under constant surveillance, Constance Markievicz’s house contained all sort of weapons, hidden in every possible place. Nora Foley, a member of a Dublin republican family, described how her Fairview home too, was a ‘regular arsenal of bombs which had been made on the premises, dynamite, gelignite, rifles bayonets, ammunition and what not’.

Eilis Ui Chonail tells how for some time small arms were imported from Sheffield labelled as ‘cutlery’. A shipment was discovered in Dublin port and Dublin Castle was informed, but in the meantime Volunteer headquarters was also notified. Three members of Cumann na mBan rushed to the scene and saved the entire shipment of 110 revolvers and ammunition.

Again, I typed the above out of the Ruth Taillon book.

CDfm · 28-04-2012 12:43am

MarchDub wrote: »

Maybe we need to spin off this thread to cover all the women of 1916?

Again, I typed the above out of the Ruth Taillon book.

Maybe later, let's focus on her first , and I suspect it will throw up other who's who.

Here is a handgun owned by her

pedroeibar1 · 30-04-2012 1:11pm

CDfm wrote: »

Maybe later, let's focus on her first , and I suspect it will throw up other who's who.

Here is a handgun owned by her

That revolver raised a lot of interest last year when it went for auction by Adams; expected to make 800-1,000, it went for about €7,500 to according to rumour a foreign buyer. It’s a .32 cal manufactured by Smith & Wesson, finished by Kavanaghs of Dublin. Suitable for close quarters only. No wonder she missed the officers at the window in the University Club. However, she must have been either a great shot or a lucky one to put the bullet between them!

Jolly Red Giant · 30-04-2012 10:56pm

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.

Connolly yes - Markievicz, I would argue not even close. During the war of independence she repeatedly ordered IRA troops to break strikes and continuously warned the leadership of SF to take action to undermine the significant class struggle underway in Ireland at the time.

CDfm · 01-05-2012 12:10am

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

Connolly yes - Markievicz, I would argue not even close. .

Hi JRG

And the , ahem, bodycount ?

Why was Countess Markievicz born in London ?

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