Constance Markiewicz

John Butler Yeats : Portrait of Constance Markiewicz

Constance Georgine Markiewicz, Countess Markiewicz , née Gore-Booth (born February 4, 1868 in London , † July 15, 1927 in Dublin ), was an Irish nationalist .

biography

Origin, family and first activities

Constance Gore-Booth was born on February 4, 1868, the eldest daughter of Sir Henry Gore-Booth, a Protestant Anglo-Irish , in Buckingham Gate, London. She grew up on the family estate of Lissadell House in County Sligo. Together with her sister Eva Gore-Booth (1870-1926) she was friends with William B. Yeats , from whom she was influenced both politically and artistically. Her sister Eva in particular was later also active as a poet.

In 1893 Constance Gore-Booth went to London to study painting at the Slade School of Art . A little later she continued her studies at the Académie Julian in Paris. It was there that she met her future husband, the Polish painter and Count Kazimierz Dunin-Markiewicz . They married on September 1, 1900. Then they settled in Dublin together. In 1903 she worked as an actress at the Abbey Theater, where she met Maud Gonne , one of her later companions, especially during the struggle for Irish independence.

Soon Constance Markiewicz joined the Inghinidhe na hÉireann ("Daughters of Ireland") association founded by Maud Gonne in 1900 . This was a nationalist women's organization that supported the struggle for Irish independence and worked to preserve the Irish language and culture. As a representative of Inghinidhe na hÉireann, Markiewicz joined the Sinn Féin party in 1908 . The Sinn Féin (Irish: "we ourselves") was founded on November 28, 1905 by Arthur Griffith . The party was against political cooperation with the British administration and in favor of unarmed resistance.

In 1907 the Boy Scouts were founded in Great Britain , an organization that was also set up in Ireland according to the British system. Indirect British influence was of course unsustainable for the Irish patriots. C. Markiewicz founded his own youth group in 1909, initially under the name Red Branch Knights . After meeting Hobson, a leading member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the group adopted the name Fianna na hÉireann , based on the mythical Fianna of the Irish legendary hero Fionn mac Cumhaill . At Easter Rising 1916, many members of the participating Fianna .

In 1911 Markiewicz was arrested for protesting against the arrival of King George V in Ireland at an IRB event with Helena Moloney . In 1913 she took part in a feeding program for poor children in Dublin and in organizing a canteen in Liberty Hall. In the same year she became treasurer of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), an armed union protection force led by James Connolly and James Larkin .

Member of Parliament and Minister of Labor

Memorial to Markiewicz in Dublin

As a member of the ICA, she took part in the 1916 Easter Rising, whereupon she was arrested by the British government and sentenced to death. She was arrested first in Aylesbury Prison, then in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin. Since the death penalty was not used on women, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

After a general amnesty in 1917, Constance Markiewicz was released. Her return to Ireland as one of the few fighters in the uprising was a triumphal procession. The Irish celebrated her as a heroine. During this time she converted to Catholicism . A little later she advocated the improvement of prison conditions for political prisoners.

In 1918 she was incarcerated in Holloway Prison in London for six months , this time because she was fighting against the Irish joining the British Army. While in prison, she was the only woman elected to the UK House of Commons as one of the 73 members of Sinn Féin in December 1918. After her release in 1919, she joined the newly formed Irish Parliament ( Dáil Éireann ), which had meanwhile been established by the members of the Sinn Féin House of Commons gathered in Dublin. On April 2, 1919, Markiewicz became Minister of Labor in the government of Eamon de Valera .

On December 6, 1921, a peace treaty between Ireland and Great Britain came into force, in which the partition of the island was approved. Markiewicz disagreed and left the government in January 1922 along with Eamon de Valera and others. She went to the USA for a short time to stand up for complete independence and to raise money for it. During the civil war from May 1922 to June 1923 she took up arms again. After her re-election to parliament in 1923, she joined the Fianna Fáil party when it was founded in 1926.

In June 1927 she was re-elected to parliament. She was the first and for a long time the only female minister in the Irish government (it was not until 1979 that Máire Geoghegan-Quinn became a female minister again).

Markiewicz died, presumably of complications from tuberculosis, on July 15, 1927 in Patrick Dunn Hospital in Dublin and was buried two days later in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery.

Works

• A battle hymn . (1954)
• A Call to the Women of Ireland . (1918)
• Fianna Handbook . (1914)
• James Connolly's Policy and Catholic Doctrine . (1923/24)
• Prison letters . (Published 1934)
• What Irish Republicans stand for . [1923]
• Memories
• Tom Clark and the First Day of the Republic
• Lark, the Fianna, and the King's Visit
• The King's Visit
• Going to Jail
• Mr. Griffith
• Mr. Griffith and Mr. Healy
• A Note on Eamon De Valera

literature

• Lindie Naughton: Markievicz: A Most Outrageous Rebel . Merrion Press, 2018, ISBN 9781785370847
• Laura Arrington: Revolutionary Lives: Constance and Casimir Markievicz . Princeton University Press, 2015, ISBN 9781400874187
• Marta Petrusewicz: Irlandski sen. Zycie Konstancji Markiewiczowej - komendantki IRA (1868-1927)
• Jacqueline Van Voris: Constance de Markievicz. In The Cause of Ireland. University of Massachusetts Press. Amherst 1967.

Web links

Commons : Constance Markiewicz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• FemBiografie Constance Markiewicz by Swantje Koch-Kanz with quotes, links and literature
• Homepage of the Oireachtas
• Constance Markiewicz at Spartacus Educational (English)