Lissadell House - Co. Sligo - Ireland

Constance Georgine Gore Booth, Countess Markievicz, Patriot, Painter, Suffragist, tireless helper of the poor,  first woman to be elected to Westminster Parliament and first woman to be elected Minister in a modern European democracy, was by any standards a remarkable woman.

              Countess Markievicz, known as 'Madame' to the poor of Dublin

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Born at Lissadell in 1868, Constance was the first of the five children of Henry Gore Booth, fifth Baronet of Sligo, and his wife Georgine. She had a happy and unremarkable childhood in Lissadell with horse-riding, sailing and picnics on the strand.

When she was old enough, Constance was taken to London for the social season but instead of finding a husband and settling down as expected of young ladies of her class, she persuaded her papa to rent a studio for her, and promptly enrolled in the Slade School of Art.

Lissadell, the South Front facing the Atlantic Ocean

At 25, Constance went to Paris to continue her studies. She was a fine looking woman, 5ft 7in tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a fresh complexion. In Paris she met Casimir Dunin-Markievicz, (4 years her junior), a widower with a young son. Casimir was from a Polish family, which had settled in the Ukrane in the days when maidservants slept across the threshold of their mistresses' rooms. Casimir's sister in law built a new wing in the family home for the ladies maids, but the older women refused to change their habits. Casimir also had quite a peremptory way with staff, which caused some amusement in his later years in Dublin.

Constance married Casimir, and their only child, Maeve Allys, was born in Lissadell in 1901.

Maeve de Markievicz, daughter to Constance and Casimir, born at Lissadell in 1901 and brought up in Sligo by her maternal grandmother

On settling in Dublin in 1903, George Russell (AE) remarked "the Gore-Booth girl who married the Polish Count with the unspellable name is going to settle near Dublin .. we might get the materials for revolt ..". Constance continued with her painting, and she and her husband regularly exhibited with AE. They became good friends. He allowed her a small part in his play Deirdre, performed at the Abbey in 1907. A signed copy of this play is in the Yeats's study at Lissadell, and three AE paintings hang in the main drawing-room.

A life of painting and pleasure was not enough for Constance. As a young girl she had confided to her journal that "Nature should provide me with something to live for, something to die for". She turned to politics. In 1908 Constance spoke publicly in favour of the nationalist cause from a Sinn Féin platform.

The reaction of her friend the poet W. B. Yeats was initially hostile:

"women, because the main event in their lives has been giving themselves and giving birth, give all to an opinion as if it were some terrible stone doll"

A reaction softened in later years

"dear shadows, now you know it all, all the folly of a fight with a common wrong or right. The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time".

Constance's political activities continued, but Casimir was not interested, and by 1914 was back in the Ukraine. Constance was sentenced to death for her part in the 1916 Easter Rising, for "taking part in an armed rebellion and waging war against his majesty the King",  but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment (in England).

Constance Markievicz Committal Form, the original of which is now in the Clare Museum, curator John Rattigan. Constance was 48, but note that her birth date is given incorrectly.

Constance was released in a general amnesty in 1917 and the following year was elected a Sinn Féin member of the English House of Commons, the first woman ever elected to Westminster.

Constance declined to take her seat, and was appointed Minister for Labour in the first Dáil. She continued to fight for the Republican cause: in a heated exchange with Michael Collins on the Treaty debates some years later she labelled his party "traitors!".  He retorted "English!" a jibe at her Anglo Irish ancestry.

In March 1926 Eamon de Valera called an extraordinary meeting of Sinn Féin to discuss the future of the party. Failing to achieve  agreement on his vision of the future, he resigned as leader of Sinn Féin and  established a new national movement. On 16 May 1926, the inaugural meeting of Fianna Fáil was held in La Scala theatre in Dublin. Among the founding members were Seán Lemass, Gerry Boland, Countess Markievicz and Frank Aiken.

Constance Markievicz (seated left) with Eamon de Valera (seated centre) at a Fianna Fail group photograph in 1927

This was the first Fianna Fáil party to enter Dáil Éireann.  The above is just a section of the entire group, which consisted of the following: BACK ROW (L to R) T. Powell, T. Mac Ellistrim, S. Hayes, M. Kennedy, S. MacEntee, G. Boland, F. Carney, P. O’Dowd, W. O’ Leary, M. Corry, S. French. STANDING (L to R) D. Corkery, T. Derrig, M. Killilea, J. Colbert, S. Moore, A. Fogarty, J. Ryan, P. Boland, P. McCarvill, N. Blaney, P. Smith, T. O’Reilly, P. Belton, M. Kilroy, T. Tynan, P.J. Ruttledge, S. Lemass, F. Aiken, P. Houlihan. FRONT ROW (L to R) S. Holt, M. O’Reilly, J. Victory, T. Mullins, Countess Markievicz, E. de Valera, Mrs. T. Clarke, D. Buckley, F. Carty, T. Crowley, J. Tubridy, P.J. Little. (S.T. O’Kelly, F. Fahy and E. Mullen also elected but do not appear in the photo.) The full list of new FF members is listed below, with the exception of Constance, who had died weeks earlier:

Ireland was at this time a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and the wording of Article 17, Constitution of Ireland 1923, was as follows: