‘My first realisation of tyranny came from some chance words spoken in favour of woman's suffrage and it raised a question of the tyranny it was intended to prevent —women voicing their opinions publicly in the ordinary and simple manner of registering their votes at the polling booth. That was my first bite, you may say, at the apple of freedom and soon I got on to the other freedom, freedom to the nation, freedom to the workers. ‘
It was a government ‘on the run.’ Deemed an illegal organisation, teachaí dala were part of a proscribed organisation and liable to arrest, cabinet meetings took place in a variety of places, mainly in the homes of sympathisers. The Department of Labour was located in a first floor 14 North Frederick Street pianos were purchased, should the offices be raided that it would appear to be a music school.
Born Constance Gore Booth at Buckingham Gate in London, she was the elder daughter of the Arctic explorer and adventurer, Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet of Lissadell, County Sligo and his wife Georgina Hill. Sir Henry was a benevolent landlord whose example inspired in his children a deep concern for working people and the poor. The sisters were childhood friends of the poet W. B Yeats who frequently visited Lissadell House, and were influenced by his artistic and political ideas. Yeats wrote a poem, "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz" in which he described the sisters as "two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle" (the gazelle being Constance). Constance spent her childhood at Lissadell and was educated at home
Constance Gore-Booth participated in the London and Dublin social seasons and, in 1887, was presented at court to Queen Victoria, a rite of passage for women of her class and background. In 1893, she began studying art at the Slade in London and then in Paris from 1898. From this time onwards, Constance's lifestyle would gradually alienate her from her family. In 1900, she married Count Casimir Dunin Markievicz, a Polish widower with a young son. They lived in his home in the Ukraine for a time before returning to Ireland in 1903. Their daughter Maeve was born in 1901: she was given into the care of her grand-mother, Lady Gore-Booth, and brought up at Lissadell.
The couple had their own theatre company and were founder members of the United Arts Club, Dublin. Casimir left Dublin on extended trips to Europe, finally leaving Ireland to fight in the First World War.
In 1907, Constance joined Inghinidhe na hÉireann and contributed to its paper Bean na hÉireann. She later joined Cumann na mBan. Together with Bulmer Hobson, she founded a youth organisation for boys, the Fianna, in 1909. During the lockout of 1913, in which the workers who supported the union were shut out of their places of employment, she assisted in the soup kitchens and joined the Irish Citizen Army, formed to protect the workers.
During the 1916 Rising, she was second in command at St Stephen’s Green and later at the College of Surgeons. She was sentenced to death for her part in the Rising, but her sentence was commuted to life in prison, as she was a woman. She was sent to Ailesbury Jail in England where she was held until June 1917. While in prison she was re-elected as the President of Cumann na mBan.
In the 1918 election, Countess Markievicz became the first woman elected to the House of Commons. She did not take her seat as she supported the Sinn Féin policy of absentionism. The Countess opposed the Treaty and argued vehemently against its acceptance it the Dáil debates. During the Civil War she took part in the fighting, helped to edit the Republican newspaper in Glasgow and went on a fundraising trip to the USA. Arrested again in 1923, she was held in the North Dublin Union. Although returned as an abstentionist TD for Dublin City South in the 1923 election, she refused to take the oath of allegiance and so did not enter the Dáil. The Countess joined the Fianna Fail party at its foundation in 1926, giving up her position in Cumann na mBan to do so. She was elected to the Dáil in 1927 and died on 15 July 1927 before Fianna Fail entered government.