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Irish nationalist, suffragist, socialist, politician, and revolutionary (1868–1927)

Constance Georgine Markievicz (Polish: Markiewicz[marˈkʲɛvitʂ]; néeGore-Booth; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), also known as Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, and socialist who was the first woman elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. She served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Dublin St Patrick's from 1918 to 1922. In the Irish Free State, she was elected Minister for Labour in the First Dáil, becoming the second female cabinet minister in Europe. She served as a Teachta Dála for the Dublin South constituency from 1921 to 1922 and 1923 to 1927.

A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic. She was sentenced to death but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of her sex. On 28 December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the UK House of Commons, though, being in Holloway Prison at the time and in accordance with party policy, she did not take her seat. Instead, she and the other Sinn Féin MPs (as TDs) formed the firstDáil Éireann. She was also one of the first women in the world to hold a cabinet position, as Minister for Labour, from 1919 to 1922.

Markievicz supported the anti-Treaty stance in the Irish Civil War. She continued as an (abstentionist) Dáil member for Sinn Féin until 1926 when she became a founding member of Fianna Fáil. She died in 1927.

Early life

Constance Georgine Gore-Booth was born at Buckingham Gate in London in 1868, the elder daughter of the Arctic explorer and adventurer Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet, an Anglo-Irish landlord who administered a 100 km (39 sq 

Countess Constance Markievicz (1868-1927) was an Irish Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician, nationalist, suffragette and socialist. She was the founding member of the Irish Citizen Army, took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and established an independent Irish Republic. On 28 December 1918, she was the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, though she did not take her seat along with the other Sinn Féin members out of protest. She also became the first woman to hold a cabinet position as Minister for Labour of the Irish Republic from 1919 to 1922.

Markievicz was born Constance Georgina Gore-Booth to Sir Henry Gore-Booth and Georgina, Lady Gore-Boot in 1868. Her father was a wealthy land owner in western Ireland. Despite her social background, Markievicz was always aware of class differences, following the model of her father who worked to maintain positive relationships with his tenants. Growing up, she was described as fearless, and full of artistic talent. As a young adult, she moved to Paris to study art, where she met the Polish-Russian Count and artist Casimir Markievicz (1874-1934), whom she married in 1900. They spent six months in Kiev before going back to Paris and then settling in Dublin, Ireland in 1901. In Dublin, the Markieviczs very quickly became involved in the lively literary, artistic, and political social life. It was during this time that Countess Markievicz’s political career began.

Markievicz became a very adamant Irish Nationalist. In 1908, she joined Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), a revolutionary Irish women’s association. One year later, when the English Boy Scouts decided to extend to Ireland, Markievicz helped to found Fianna Éireann, a para-military nationalist scouting organization that instructed teenage boys in the use of firearms. The Fianna members were not allowed to join any English armed force.

In 1913, Markievicz

Constance’s political activities continued, but Casimir was not interested, and by 1914 he was back in the Ukraine.Constance was also active in helping the poor of Dublin. Madame de Markievicz, as she was called, had established and operated a soup kitchen from the headquarters of the ITGWU at Liberty Hall during the great Lock Out of 1913 organised by Jim Larkin. She herself collected and delivered bags of turf, which she brought into Dublin in her car from the Dublin mountains.She was regularly seen hauling heavy bags of fuel up flights of stairs in back street tenement houses, where so many of the poorest people in Dublin eked out a mere survival.

James Connolly became a significant influence in the development of Constance’s political ideology. In an article written for The Nation in March 1927, Constance wrote that “when he began to organise the Irish Citizen Army he brought me along, teaching me, as he got to know me, as a comrade, giving me any work that I could do, and quite ignoring the conventional attitude towards the work of women“.Constance became a commissioned officer in the Irish Citizen Army, and was involved in the planning of the 1916 Rising. Her notebook, recording the planned manoeuvres is now on display in Lissadell. She fought in St. Stephen’s Green and retreated to the College of Surgeons, where she eventually surrendered. Constance was sentenced to death for her part in the Rising, commuted to life imprisonment because of her sex. This brought little relief. At that time she just wanted to die with her comrades, who were being executed almost daily in the hard labour yard outside her cell in Kilmainham Gaol. Constance had a particular loyalty to James Connolly, who was executed strapped to a chair because he was so bady wounded he could not stand (the place is marked with a cross in Kilmainham, which is now a museum). On his death, she wrote these words:

The exploits of the ‘Larkinite rebel countess’, Constance Markievicz, dominated contemporary press accounts of the Easter Rising. The scene at the College of Surgeons when she kissed her revolver before handing it over to the British officer at the moment of surrender passed instantly into Irish nationalist mythology.

Constance Markievicz was born in London. Her Protestant ascendancy family, the Gore-Booths, owned Lissadell, an extensive estate in Co. Sligo. She was presented at court to Queen Victoria in the monarch’s Jubilee year, 1887. The unpredictable pattern of her subsequent career began when she married a Polish Count, Casimir Markievicz; with little in common, they separated amicably at the outbreak of World War One when he went off to the Balkans as a war reporter. In 1909, she first became known to British intelligence for her role in helping found Na Fianna Éireann, a nationalist scouts organisation whose purpose was to train boys for participation in a war of liberation. She was also active in the Irish suffragette movement and focussed much energy into Inghinidhe na hÉireann, a militant women’s organisation founded by Maud Gonne. She co-operated closely with the labour leaders, James Larkin and James Connolly. Her compassion for the poor was evident during the 1913 Dublin Lockout when she worked tirelessly to provide food for the workers’ families. Two years later she helped organise and train the Irish Citizen Army.

During the Easter Rising Markievicz was second-in-command to Michael Mallin at St. Stephen’s Green/College of Surgeons and was active in a fighting capacity throughout the week. Afterwards, she was the only woman to be court-martialled (4 May 1916). It was later alleged by the Prosecution Counsel that she ‘crumpled up’ at her trial but the official records indicate that she acted throughout with courage, dignity and defiance, declaring: "I did what I thought was right, and I stand by it". The verdict reached by th