{{Short description|Irish revolutionary and suffragist (1868–1927)}} {{Use Hiberno-English|date=October 2021}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Constance Markievicz | image = Countess Constance Markiewicz-1.1.2 (cropped).jpg | image_size = | caption = Markievicz in her Irish Citizen Army uniform | office = Minister for Labour | term_start = April 1919 | term_end = January 1922 | predecessor = New office | successor = Joseph McGrath | office1 = Teachta Dála | term_start1 = August 1923 | term_end1 = 15 July 1927 | term_start2 = May 1921 | term_end2 = June 1922 | constituency2 = Dublin South | term_start3 = December 1918 | term_end3 = May 1921 | constituency3 = Dublin St Patrick's | office4 = Member of Parliament | predecessor4 = William Field | successor4 = Constituency abolished | term_start4 = 28 December 1918 | term_end4 = 15 November 1922 | constituency4 = Dublin St Patrick's | birth_name = Constance Georgine Gore-Booth | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1868|2|4}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1927|7|15|1868|2|4}} | death_place = Dublin, Ireland | party = {{Ubl|Fianna Fáil (1926–1927)|Sinn Féin (1908–1926)}} | spouse = Casimir Markievicz (m. 1900) | children = Maeve Markievicz (1901–1962) | parents = {{Ubl|Sir Henry Gore-Booth|Georgina Hill}} | relations = Eva Gore-Booth (sister) | resting_place = Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland | module = {{Infobox military person |embed = yes |embed_title = Military service |allegiance = Irish Republic |branch = {{ubl|Irish Citizen Army|Irish Republican Army|Cumann na mBan}} |service_years= 1913–1923 |rank = Lieutenant<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bmh.militaryarchives.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1666.pdf#page=8|title=Bureau of Military History, Winess Statement 1666, Fr. T. O'Donoghue|access-date=7 Mar 2026|website=Bureau of Military History}}</ref> |battles = {{ubl|Dublin Lockout|Easter Rising|Irish War of Independence|Irish Civil War}} |battles_label= Conflicts }} }} {{Irish republicanism}}
'''Constance Georgine Markievicz''' ({{langx|pl|Markiewicz}} {{IPA|pl|marˈkʲɛvitʂ|}}; ''{{née}}'' '''Gore-Booth'''; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), also known as '''Countess Markievicz''' and '''Madame Markievicz''',<ref>{{cite news|author=<!--Staff writer(s)/no by-line.-->|title=Sligo and Madame Markievicz|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|date=29 June 1917}}</ref> was an Irish revolutionary nationalist politician, suffragist and socialist who was the first woman elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Born in London, she came from the Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning elite, which she abandoned in favour of Irish independence and social reform.<ref>{{Cite web | title=Revolutionary Lives |publisher=Princeton University Press | url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691161242/revolutionary-lives | access-date=2025-07-27 | date=24 November 2015 }}</ref>
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<ref>British National Archives WO 35/211</ref> on the grounds of her sex.
On 28 December 1918, at the 1918 general election (while in Holloway Prison), she became first woman elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom;<ref name=dec28 /> in accordance with the abstentionist policy of the Sinn Féin manifesto, she did not take her seat on her release, serving as a TD in the revolutionary Dáil Éireann.
She served as a TD for Dublin St Patrick's from 1918 to 1921, and for Dublin South from 1921 to 1922. She served as Minister for Labour in the Ministry of Dáil Éireann from 1919 to 1922, becoming the second female cabinet minister in Europe.{{efn|name=firstm|Alexandra Kollontai was People's Commissar (Minister) for Social Welfare of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1918.}} She served again as a TD for Dublin South constituency 1923 until her death in 1927.
Markievicz opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and supported the Anti-Treaty forces in the Irish Civil War. She left Sinn Féin in 1926 to become a founding member of Fianna Fáil. She died in 1927.
== Early life == thumb|left|alt=Constance Gore-Booth, later known as Constance Markievicz|Constance Gore-Booth, later known as Constance Markievicz 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 Protestant landlord who administered a {{convert|100|km2|sqmi|abbr=on|lk=off}} estate, and Georgina, Lady Gore-Booth, {{nee|Hill}}. During the famine of 1879–1880, Sir Henry provided free food for the tenants on his estate at Lissadell House in the north of County Sligo in the north-west of Ireland. Their father's example inspired in Gore-Booth and her younger sister, Eva Gore-Booth, a deep concern for working people and the poor. The sisters were childhood friends of the poet W. B. Yeats, who frequently visited the family home 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 kimono, both beautiful, one a gazelle", the gazelle being Eva, whom Yeats described as having "a gazelle-like beauty".<ref>Memoirs, Ed by Dennis Donoghue (1972) Quoted in Everyman edition of, Yeats, The Poems.(1992)p694.{{cite magazine |first=Rosemary |last=Rodgers |title=The Rebel Countess |magazine=Irish America |at=June/July 2015. pp. 42–3 |date=11 May 2015 |url=https://issuu.com/irishamerica/docs/ia_june_july_2015 |access-date=22 November 2018 |via=issuu |archive-date=28 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728194645/https://issuu.com/irishamerica/docs/ia_june_july_2015 |url-status=live }}{{break}}{{cite web |first=Rosemary |last=Rodgers |title=The Rebel Countess |website=Irish America |at=June/July 2015 |date=13 May 2015 |url=https://irishamerica.com/2015/05/the-rebel-countess/ |access-date=23 November 2018 |via=Irish America website |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123130609/https://irishamerica.com/2015/05/the-rebel-countess/ |archive-date=23 November 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref> Eva later became involved in the labour movement and women's suffrage in Great Britain, although initially Constance did not share her sister's ideals.
Gore-Booth wished to train as a painter, to her family's dismay; in 1892, she went to study at the Slade School of Art in London,<ref name="cawip">{{cite web|url=http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/Irish%20bios/TDs_2.htm#markievicz|title=Countess Markievicz (Constance Markievicz)|work=Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics|access-date=6 June 2008|archive-date=16 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316014707/http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/Irish%20bios/TDs_2.htm#markievicz|url-status=dead}}</ref> where she lived at the Alexandra House for Art Pupils, Kensington Gore, founded five years before by Sir Francis Cook, a wealthy great-uncle of Maud Gonne. One of her contemporaries there was Blanche Georgiana Vulliamy.<ref>{{cite book |first=Lindie |last=Naughton |title=Markievicz: A Most Outrageous Rebel |year=2016 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HTFRDQAAQBAJ| page=37 |publisher=Merrion Press |place=Newbridge, Co. Kildare |isbn=978-1-78537-084-7 |access-date=22 November 2018}}</ref> It was at this time that Gore-Booth first became politically active and joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Later she moved to Paris and enrolled at the prestigious Académie Julian where she met her future husband, Casimir Markievicz (Kazimierz Markiewicz) an artist from a wealthy Polish landowning family in present-day Ukraine (then under the rule of the Russian Empire).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/ireland.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980505065850/http://thewildgeese.com/pages/ireland.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 May 1998|title=Constance Markievicz: The Countess of Irish Freedom|work=The Wild Geese today}}</ref>
The Markieviczes (or Markiewiczes) settled in Dublin in 1903 and moved in artistic and literary circles, with Constance gaining a reputation as a landscape painter.<ref>Gore-Booth, Eva, [http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?folder_id=1020&pidtopage=MS9921_009&entry_point=9 ''The one and the many''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304084904/http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?folder_id=1020&pidtopage=MS9921_009&entry_point=9 |date=4 March 2016 }}, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1904. Copy with hand-painted illustrations by Constance Markievicz [née Gore-Booth] held in the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, The Library of Trinity College Dublin. Available in digital form on the Digital Collections website.</ref> In 1905, along with artists Sarah Purser, Nathaniel Hone, Walter Osborne and John Butler Yeats, she was instrumental in founding the United Arts Club, which was an attempt to bring together all those in Dublin with an artistic and literary bent. This group included the leading figures of the Gaelic League founded by the future first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde. Although formally concerned only with the preservation of the Irish language and culture, the league brought together many patriots and future political leaders. Sarah Purser, whom the young Gore-Booth sisters first met in 1882, when she was commissioned to paint their portrait, hosted a regular salon where artists, writers and intellectuals on both sides of the nationalist divide gathered. At Purser's house, Markievicz met revolutionary patriots Michael Davitt, John O'Leary and Maud Gonne. In 1907, Markievicz rented a cottage in the countryside near Dublin. The previous tenant, the poet Padraic Colum, had left behind copies of ''The Peasant'' and ''Sinn Féin''. These revolutionary journals promoted independence from British rule. Markievicz read them and was propelled into action.<ref>Anne Haverty, Constance Markievicz: Irish Revolutionary (Lilliput Press: Dublin, 2016), pp. 73-74.</ref>
== Politics == In 1908, Markievicz became actively involved in nationalist politics in Ireland. She joined Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann ("Daughters of Ireland"), a revolutionary women's movement founded by the actress and activist Maud Gonne, muse of W. B. Yeats. Markievicz came directly to her first meeting from a function at Dublin Castle, the seat of British rule in Ireland, wearing a satin ball gown and a diamond tiara. This refreshing change from being "kowtowed"-to as a countess only made her more eager to join, she told her friend Helena Molony. She performed with Maud Gonne in several plays at the newly established Abbey Theatre, an institution that played an important part in the rise of cultural nationalism. In the same year, Markievicz played a dramatic role in the women's suffrage campaigners' tactic of opposing Winston Churchill during the 1908 Manchester North West by-election, flamboyantly appearing in the constituency driving an old-fashioned carriage drawn by four white horses to promote the suffragist cause. A male heckler asked her if she could cook a dinner, to which she responded, "Yes. Can you drive a coach and four?" Her sister Eva had moved to Manchester to live with fellow suffragist Esther Roper and they both campaigned against the anti-suffragist Churchill with her. Churchill lost the election to Conservative candidate William Joynson-Hicks, in part as a result of the suffragists' dedicated opposition.<ref>{{cite book|last=Marecco|first=Anne|title=The Rebel Countess|year=1967|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson}}</ref>
In 1909 Markievicz founded Fianna Éireann, a nationalist scouting organisation that instructed teenage boys in scouting, in the style of Robert Baden-Powell's then-paramilitary Boy Scouts. At the Fianna's first meeting in Camden Street, Dublin, on 16 August 1909, she was almost expelled on the basis that women did not belong in a physical force movement. She had drawn in Bulmer Hobson, who had earlier founded a less successful boy scout group in Belfast. He supported her and she was elected to the committee.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Townshend|first1=Charles|title=Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion|date=2006|publisher=Penguin Books|location=London|isbn=978-0-14-190276-0|pages=21–2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g6FNKxBJXMYC|access-date=27 March 2016|archive-date=29 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729162647/https://books.google.com/books?id=g6FNKxBJXMYC|url-status=live}}</ref> She was jailed for the first time in 1911 for speaking at an Irish Republican Brotherhood demonstration attended by 30,000 people, organised to protest against George V's visit to Ireland. During this protest, Markievicz handed out leaflets, erected great banners emblazoned "Dear land thou art not conquered yet", participated in stone-throwing at pictures of the King and Queen and attempted to burn the giant British flag taken from Leinster House, eventually succeeding, but then seeing James McArdle imprisoned for one month for the incident, despite Markievicz testifying in court that she was responsible.<ref name="Ward_1983_78">{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Margaret |title=Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism |date=1983 |publisher=Pluto Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-86104-700-0 |page=78 }}</ref> Her friend Helena Molony was arrested for her part in the stone-throwing and became the first woman in Ireland to be tried and imprisoned for a political act since the time of the Ladies' Land League.<ref name="Ward_1983_78" />
Markievicz joined James Connolly's socialist Irish Citizen Army (ICA), a volunteer force formed in response to the lock-out of 1913 to defend the demonstrating workers from the police. Markievicz recruited volunteers to peel potatoes in the basement of Liberty Hall while she and others worked on distributing the food. Markievicz was forced to take out loans and to sell her jewellery. That year, with Inghinidhe na hÉireann, she ran a soup kitchen to feed poor children and enable them to attend school.
In the Inghininidhe na h-Éireann magazine {{lang|ga|Bean na h-Éireann}}, Markievicz's advice to women was: "Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and buy a revolver."<ref>{{cite book|last=Sigillito|first=Gina|title=The Daughters of Maeve: 50 Irish Women Who Changed World|date=2007|publisher=Kensington Publishing Corp.|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8065-3609-5|page=87|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfUCl5tHDNUC&pg=PA87|access-date=11 May 2014|archive-date=29 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729180725/https://books.google.com/books?id=XfUCl5tHDNUC&pg=PA87|url-status=live}}</ref>
== Easter Rising == [[File:Countess Markievicz.jpg|thumb|right|Markievicz in uniform examining a Colt New Service Model 1909 revolver, posed {{circa|1915}}]] As a member of the Citizen Army, Markievicz took part in the 1916 Easter Rising. She was deeply inspired by the founder of the ICA, James Connolly. Markievicz designed the Citizen Army uniform and composed its anthem, based on the tune of a Polish song.<ref>{{cite book|last=Markievicz|first=Constance|title=A Battle Hymn|date=c. 1917|publisher=Irish Traditional Music Archive|url=http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/book/battle-hymn|access-date=11 May 2014|archive-date=29 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929192205/http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/book/battle-hymn|url-status=live}}</ref>
Markievicz fought in St Stephen's Green, where on the first morning —according to the only two pages surviving of the diary of an alleged witness — she shot a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, Constable Lahiff, who subsequently died of his injuries.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Matthews|first1=Ann|title=Renegades: Irish Republican Women 1900–1922|date=2010|publisher=Mercier Press Ltd.|isbn=978-1-85635-684-8|pages=129–30|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pzYkTYi3JRgC&pg=PA129|access-date=22 March 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Arrington |first=Lauren |url=http://irishhistoriansinbritain.org/?p=18 |title=Did Constance Markievicz Shoot the Policeman? |website=Conference of Irish Historians in Britain |date=26 January 2016 |access-date=23 March 2016 |archive-date=4 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160404200516/http://irishhistoriansinbritain.org/?p=18 |url-status=live }}</ref> Other accounts place her at City Hall when the policeman was shot, only arriving at Stephen's Green later.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Constance Markievicz: Irish Revolutionary |last=Haverty |first=Anne |author-link=Anne Haverty|year=1988 |publisher=Pandora |location=London |isbn=978-0-86358-161-8 |page=148 }}</ref> It was long thought that she was second in command to Michael Mallin,{{sfnp|Ward|1983|p=112}} but in fact it was Kit Poole who held that position.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Millar|first1=Scott|title=Not for fame or for name|journal=Liberty|date=December 2013|volume=12|issue=10|page=23}}</ref> Markievicz supervised the setting-up of barricades on Easter Monday and was in the middle of the fighting all around Stephen's Green, wounding a British army sniper.<ref>{{cite book|last1=McKenna|first1=Joseph|title=Guerrilla Warfare in the Irish War of Independence, 1919–1921|date=2011|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-8519-2|page=112|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BxLb0aZOFOMC&pg=PA112|access-date=22 March 2016}}</ref> Trenches were dug in the Green, sheltered by the front gate; however, after British machine gun and rifle fire from the rooftops of tall buildings on the north side of the Green including the Shelbourne Hotel, the Citizen Army troops withdrew to the Royal College of Surgeons on the west side of the Green.
The Stephen's Green garrison held out for six days, ending the engagement when the British brought them Pearse's surrender order. The British officer, Captain (later Major) de Courcy Wheeler, who accepted their surrender was married to Markievicz's first cousin, Selina Maude Beresford Knox.<ref>{{cite web|title=Mauser pistol handed to me by Countess Markievicz when she surrendered to me at the College of Surgeons Dublin in 1916 with Commandant Mallin. H. E. de C. Wheeler. This was presented to me by General Lowe|url=http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000652512/HierarchyTree|website=Catalogue|publisher=National Library of Ireland|access-date=5 January 2016|date=1916|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305094345/http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000652512/HierarchyTree|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Bunbury|first1=Turtle|title=Dorothea Findlater – One Hundred Years On|url=http://www.turtlebunbury.com/interviews/interviews_misc/interviews_misc_dorotheafindlater.html|access-date=5 January 2016|quote=Perhaps the most awkward arrest Wheeler made was Countess Markievicz, his wife's first cousin.|archive-date=5 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305185235/http://www.turtlebunbury.com/interviews/interviews_misc/interviews_misc_dorotheafindlater.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
They were taken to Dublin Castle and then to Kilmainham Gaol through what Matt Connolly described as "several groups of hostile people".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bmh.militaryarchives.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1746.pdf|title=Bureau of Military History, Statement of Witness No 1745, Matthew Connolly|website=Bureau of Military History|access-date=6 Mar 2026}}</ref> There, she was the only one of 70 women prisoners who was put into solitary confinement. At her court-martial on 4 May 1916, Markievicz pleaded not guilty to "taking part in an armed rebellion...for the purpose of assisting the enemy," but pleaded guilty to having attempted "to cause disaffection among the civil population of His Majesty".<ref name="FoyBarton303">{{cite book|last1=Foy|first1=Michael T.|last2=Barton|first2=Brian|title=The Easter Rising|date=2011|publisher=The History Press|isbn=978-0-7524-7272-0|page=303|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wUI7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA303|access-date=30 March 2016|archive-date=29 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729161714/https://books.google.com/books?id=wUI7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA303|url-status=live}}</ref> Markievicz told the court, "I went out to fight for Ireland's freedom and it does not matter what happens to me. I did what I thought was right and I stand by it."<ref name=FoyBarton303 />{{sfnp|Arrington|2015|p=141}} She was sentenced to death, but the court recommended mercy "solely and only on account of her sex".<ref name=FoyBarton303 /> The sentence was commuted to life in prison. When told of this, she said to her captors, "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me".{{efn|A quite different account was given by 2-Lt William Wylie KC, the prosecutor, writing 23 years later in 1939: he said that she "curled up completely", "never stopped moaning" and cried "I am only a woman, and you cannot shoot a woman. You must not shoot a woman."<ref>{{cite book |last=Richardson |first=Neil |title=According to their Lights: Stories of Irishmen in the British Army, Easter 1916 |publisher=The Collins Press |location=Cork |date=2015 |chapter=Chapter 8: Dublin University Officer Training Corps: The Defence of Trinity College Dublin |isbn=978-1-84889-214-9}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite book|last1=Dowler|first1=Lorraine|editor1-last=Flint|editor1-first=Colin|title=The Geography of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats|date=2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-534751-7|page=144|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Za08XQfp3ZwC&pg=PA144|access-date=30 March 2016|chapter=Amazonian Landscapes: Gender, War, and Historical Repetition}}</ref>
Markievicz was transferred to Mountjoy Prison, Holloway Prison and then to Aylesbury Prison in England in July 1916. She was released from prison in 1917, along with others involved in the Rising, as the government in London granted a general amnesty for those who had participated in it. It was around this time that Markievicz, born into the Church of Ireland, converted to Catholicism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kenny |first1=Mary |title=Would the countess have supported repeal of the 8th? |journal=History Ireland |date=November–December 2018 |url=https://www.historyireland.com/volume-26/issue-6-november-december-2018/would-the-countess-have-supported-repeal-of-the-8th/ |access-date=9 December 2021 |archive-date=9 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209120459/https://www.historyireland.com/volume-26/issue-6-november-december-2018/would-the-countess-have-supported-repeal-of-the-8th/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
== 1st Dáil == [[File:Following the pipers! (29677821546).jpg|thumb|Election victory procession led by Markievicz in County Clare, circa 1918]] Along with other leading Sinn Féin members, she was jailed again in 1918 for her part in the supposed German Plot. At the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin won 73 of the 105 seats in Ireland; Markievicz was elected as MP for Dublin St Patrick's, beating her opponent William Field with 66% of the vote. The results were called on 28 December 1918.<ref name=dec28>{{cite web|url=http://www.irishlabourhistorysociety.com/pdf/Markievicz.pdf|title=Countess Markievicz—'The Rebel Countess'|website=Irish Labour History Society|access-date=17 December 2017|archive-date=18 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200418145050/http://www.irishlabourhistorysociety.com/pdf/Markievicz.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> This made her the first woman elected to the United Kingdom House of Commons.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bell |first=Jo |title=On this day she : putting women back into history, one day at a time |date=2021 |others=Tania Hershman, Ailsa Holland |isbn=978-1-78946-271-5 | publisher=John Blake Publishing|location=London |page=127 |oclc=1250378425}}</ref> However, in line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy, she did not take her seat in the House of Commons.<ref>{{cite web |title=Archives – The First Women MPs |website=UK Parliament |url=https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/explore-guides-to-documentary-archive-/archives-highlights/archives-the-suffragettes/archives-the-first-women-in-parliament-1919-1945 |access-date=23 November 2018 |archive-date=7 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181007183548/https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/explore-guides-to-documentary-archive-/archives-highlights/archives-the-suffragettes/archives-the-first-women-in-parliament-1919-1945/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
Markievicz was in Holloway prison when her colleagues assembled in Dublin at the first meeting of the 1st Dáil, the Parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. When her name was called, she was described, like many of those elected, as being "imprisoned by the foreign enemy" ({{lang|ga|fé ghlas ag Gallaibh}}).<ref>{{cite journal|title=3. An Rolla|volume=F|issue=1|url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1919-01-21/4/|journal=Dáil Debates|publisher=Houses of the Oireachtas|date=21 January 1919 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irishresistancebooks.com/internment/intern6.htm|title=Internment – Women Internees 1916–1973|first=John|last=McGuffin|year=1973|access-date=22 March 2009|archive-date=13 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190913203048/http://www.irishresistancebooks.com/internment/intern6.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> She was re-elected to the 2nd Dáil in the 1921 election.<ref name=elecs_irl>{{cite web|url=http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?id=994|title=Countess Constance de Markievicz|work=ElectionsIreland.org|access-date=22 March 2009|archive-date=28 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190928132858/https://www.electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=994|url-status=live}}</ref>
Markievicz served as Minister for Labour from April 1919 to January 1922, in the Second Ministry and the Third Ministry of the Dáil. Holding cabinet rank from April to August 1919, she became both the first Irish female cabinet Minister and at the same time, only the second female government minister in Europe.{{efn|name=firstm}}{{sfnp|Ward|1983|p=137}} No other woman was appointed to cabinet until 1979 when Máire Geoghegan-Quinn was appointed as Minister for the Gaeltacht for Fianna Fáil. Her Labour department was concerned with setting up Conciliation Boards, arbitrating labour disputes, surveying areas and establishing guidelines for wages and food prices.<ref>{{cite book|last=McNamara|first=Maedhbh|title=A Woman's Place is in the Cabinet: Women Ministers in Irish Government 1919–2019|location=Drogheda (Ireland)|publisher=Sea Dog Books|date=2020|isbn=978-1-913275-06-8}}{{page needed|date=September 2021}}</ref>
== Civil War and Fianna Fáil == thumb|260px|A 1927 group shot of founding members of Fianna Fáil, with Markievicz placed front and centre beside leader Éamon de Valera Markievicz left the government in January 1922 along with Éamon de Valera and others in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She worked actively for the Republican cause in the Irish Civil War, including directing the Citizen Army in the occupation of Moran's Hotel in Dublin.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://bmh.militaryarchives.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0749.pdf#page=8|title=Bureau of Military History, Statement of Witness No 749, Annie Farrington|website=Bureau of Military History|access-date=6 Mar 2026}}</ref> During the Battle of Dublin (28 June to 5 July 1922) she helped lead the anti-Treaty forces of the IRAs Dublin Brigade. Members of Cumann na mBan assisted the anti-treaty forces and carried dispatches between the occupied Four Courts buildings and the Dublin Brigade headquarters.<ref>{{cite book |last=Macardle |first=Dorothy |author-link=Dorothy Macardle |date=1965 |title=The Irish Republic |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |pages=747–748 |isbn=}}</ref> After the civil war she toured the United States. She lost her seat in the 1922 general election but was returned at the 1923 general election, again for Dublin South. In common with other Republican candidates, she did not take her Dáil seat. She was arrested again in November 1923. In prison, she went on a hunger strike and, within a month, was released with other prisoners.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/markievicz-constance-georgine-a5452|last=Pašeta|first=Senia|title=Markievicz, Constance Georgine|website=Dictionary of Irish Biography|date=2009|publisher=Royal Irish Academy|doi=10.3318/dib.005452.v1|doi-access=free|access-date=8 January 2022}}</ref>
She left Sinn Féin and joined Fianna Fáil on its foundation in 1926, chairing the inaugural meeting of the new party in La Scala Theatre. In the June 1927 general election, she was re-elected to the 5th Dáil as a candidate for Fianna Fáil, which was pledged to take its seats in Dáil Éireann if the requirement to take the Oath of Allegiance were removed. Markievicz died on 15 July 1927.<ref name=oireachtas_db>{{cite web|url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Co%EF%BB%BFnstance-Georgina-de-Markievicz.D.1919-01-21/|title=Constance Georgina de Markievicz |website=Houses of the Oireachtas |access-date=23 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123131545/https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Co%EF%BB%BFnstance-Georgina-de-Markievicz.D.1919-01-21/ |archive-date=23 November 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Following the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins and proposed changes in electoral law, Fianna Fáil altered its policy. Its TDs signed the Oath and took their seats in the Dáil on 12 August 1927, less than a month after her death.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1927-08-12/2/ |title=New Deputies take their seats |work=Dáil Debates |date=12 August 1927 |access-date=9 December 2018 |archive-date=28 August 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190828093602/https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1927-08-12/2/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The party leader Éamon de Valera described the Oath as "an empty political formula".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/ashorthistory/archive/intro236.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100820044651/http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/ashorthistory/archive/intro236.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=20 August 2010 |title=BBC's Short History of Ireland |publisher=BBC |date=1 January 1970 |access-date=21 August 2013 }}</ref>
== Family life == thumb|upright|right|Markievicz with her daughter and stepson Constance's husband, Casimir Markievicz, was known in Paris as Count Markievicz, a title that was the norm for large landowners in Poland at this time. When the Gore-Booth family enquired as to the validity of the title, they were informed through Pyotr Rachkovsky of the Russian Secret Police that he had taken the title "without right" and that there had never been a "Count Markievicz" in Poland.<ref>{{cite book |last=Arrington |first=Lauren |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzRJCgAAQBAJ |title=Revolutionary Lives: Constance and Casimir Markievicz |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-4008-7418-7 |place=Princeton, NJ |pages=21–2 |access-date=29 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729155758/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzRJCgAAQBAJ |archive-date=29 July 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> However, the Department of Genealogy in Saint Petersburg said that he was entitled to claim to be a member of the nobility.{{sfnp|Arrington|2015|p=22 (footnote)}} Markievicz was married, though separated, at the time they met; his wife died in 1899 and he and Gore-Booth married in London on 29 September 1900.<ref name="lissadell">{{cite web |title=Constance Georgine Gore-Booth |url=http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/marriage.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071118172244/http://www.constancemarkievicz.ie/marriage.php |archive-date=18 November 2007 |access-date=8 August 2011 |publisher=The Lissadell Estate}}</ref> She gave birth to their daughter, Maeve, at Lissadell in November 1901.<ref name="lissadell" /> The child was mainly raised by her Gore-Booth grandparents. Stanislas, Casimir's son from his first marriage, accompanied the couple to Ireland after their honeymoon visit to his homeland.
In 1913, Markievicz's husband moved back to Ukraine and never returned to live in Ireland. However, they did correspond and he was by her side when she died.
== Death == Markievicz died at the age of 59 on 15 July 1927, of complications after two appendicitis operations, a dangerous surgery in the days before antibiotics. She had given away the last of her wealth. She died in a public ward "among the poor where she wanted to be".<ref name=Depuis>{{cite book|last=Depuis|first=Nicola|title=Mná na hÉireann: Women who Shaped Ireland|date=2009|publisher=Mercier Press Ltd|location=Cork|isbn=978-1-85635-645-9|page=171|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=heeon5xC5KwC&pg=PA171|access-date=14 May 2014|archive-date=29 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729171243/https://books.google.com/books?id=heeon5xC5KwC&pg=PA171|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Levenson|first1=Leah|last2=Natterstad|first2=Jerry H.|title=Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington: Irish Feminist|date=1989|publisher=Syracuse University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8156-2480-6|page=452|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MCJO7AX9tjsC&pg=PA152|access-date=14 May 2014|archive-date=29 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729171229/https://books.google.com/books?id=MCJO7AX9tjsC&pg=PA152|url-status=live}}</ref> One of the doctors attending her was her revolutionary colleague Kathleen Lynn.<ref name=II1927>{{cite news|title=Death of Madame Marcievicz|newspaper=Irish Independent|date=15 July 1927}}</ref> Also at her bedside were Casimir and Stanislas Markievicz, Éamon de Valera and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.<ref name=II1927 /> Prior to her death, Esther Roper maintained a vigil at Constance's bed with Marie Perolz, Helena Molony, Kathleen Lynn and other friends. Refused a state funeral by the Free State government, she was laid out in the Rotunda, where she had spoken at so many political meetings. Thousands of the Dubliners lined O'Connell Street and Parnell Square to pass by her body and pay their respects to 'Madame'. It took four hours for the beginning of the funeral, starting from the Rotunda, to reach the gates of Glasnevin Cemetery. Éamon de Valera gave the funeral oration, while Free State soldiers stood on guard to prevent the rifle salute that Michael Collins had called "the only speech which it is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian".<ref name=Depuis /><ref>{{cite news|title=The Late Madame Marcievicz: An Impressive Funeral|newspaper=Irish Independent|date=18 July 1927}}</ref>
Her former Citizen Army colleague the playwright Seán O'Casey said of her: "One thing she had in abundance—physical courage; with that she was clothed as with a garment."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ratcliffe|first=Susan|title=People on People: The Oxford Dictionary of Biographical Quotations|date=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-866261-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/peopleonpeopleox0000unse/page/235 235]|url=https://archive.org/details/peopleonpeopleox0000unse/page/235}}</ref>
== Tributes == In County Sligo Markievicz Road and Markievicz Park (the main GAA stadium in the county) both bear her name.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ulster Bank, Stephen Street, Markievicz Road, RATHQUARTER, Sligo, SLIGO |url=https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/32007154/ulster-bank-stephen-street-holborn-street-markievicz-street-rathquarter-sligo-county-sligo |website=buildingsfireland.ie |publisher=National Inventory of Architectural Heritage}}</ref> In Dublin, the flat complex Countess Markiewicz House also bears her name.<ref>{{cite web |title=Countess Markiewicz House, 115-140 Townsend Street, Mark's Lane, Dublin 2, DUBLIN |url=https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50020350/countess-markiewicz-house-115-140-townsend-street-marks-lane-dublin-2-dublin |website=buildingsfireland.ie |publisher=National Inventory of Architectural Heritage}}</ref>
In 2018, a portrait of Markievicz was donated by the Irish parliament to the British House of Commons to commemorate the Representation of the People Act 1918, under which, some women were allowed the right to vote for the first time in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite press release|url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/press-centre/press-releases/20180719-picture-of-constance-markievicz-first-woman-elected-to-house-of-commons-gifted-to-uk-by-ceann-comhairle|title=Picture of Constance Markievicz, first woman elected to House of Commons, gifted to UK by Ceann Comhairle|date=19 July 2018|publisher=Houses of the Oireachtas|language=en-ie|access-date=4 March 2019|archive-date=6 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306111510/https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/press-centre/press-releases/20180719-picture-of-constance-markievicz-first-woman-elected-to-house-of-commons-gifted-to-uk-by-ceann-comhairle/|url-status=live}}</ref>
In 2019, a Dublin City Council Commemorative Plaque was unveiled at Markievicz's former home in Dublin, Surrey House on Leinster Road in Rathmines.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://dublingazette.com/news/news-city-edition/markievicz-plaque-89230/ |title=Countess Markievicz is honoured with a plaque at Rathmines home |date=17 July 2019 |publisher=Dublingazette.com |access-date=17 July 2019 |archive-date=17 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190717152837/https://dublingazette.com/news/news-city-edition/markievicz-plaque-89230/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 2008, a Ukrainian village of Zhyvotivka, where Constance stayed with the Markievicz family in 1903, opened a room dedicated to the couple with the documents brought from Lissadel.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1 October 2008 |title=Irish flag flies high as Markievicz room opens in Ukrainian village |url=https://www.independent.ie/news/irish-flag-flies-high-as-markievicz-room-opens-in-{{sic|ukra|nian|hide=y}}-village/27559889.html |access-date=21 April 2024 |website=Irish Independent |language=en}}</ref>
<gallery> File:Constance Markievicz statue by Elizabeth McLaughlin (01).jpg|Sculpture of Markievicz and her cocker spaniel, Poppet, on Townsend Street, Dublin by Elizabeth McLaughlin File:Constance Markievicz 1.jpg|A Dublin City Council 1916 Commemorative plaque, unveiled on 15 July 2019, to commemorate Constance Markievicz and the house she lived in from 1912 to 1916 File:Constance Markiewicz in st stephens green.JPG|The bust of Constance Markievicz in St Stephen's Green in Dublin. </gallery>
== Notes == {{Notelist}}
== References == {{Reflist|30em}}
== Further reading == * {{cite book|first=Seán|last= O'Faolain|title=Constance Markievicz|date=1934}} * {{cite book|first=Damian|last= Lawlor|title=Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Revolution- 1909–1923|date=2009}} * {{cite book|first=Anne|last= Marreco|author-link=Anne Wignall|title=The Rebel Countess: The Life and Times of Constance Markievicz|date=1967}} * {{cite book|first=Diana|last= Norman|title=Terrible Beauty: A Life of Constance Markievicz, 1868–1927|date=1987}} * {{cite book|first=Anne|last= Haverty|author-link=Anne Haverty|title=Constance Markievicz: Irish Revolutionary|date=1993}} * {{cite book|first=Joe|last= McGowan|author-link=Joe McGowan|title=Constance Markievicz: The People's Countess|date=2003}} * {{cite book|first=Jacqueline|last= Van Voris|title=Constance de Markievicz: In The Cause of Ireland|date=1967}}
<gallery> File:Piece 097-07; Prosecution of A McCabe, Countess Markievicz, B Ryan, D McHugh, Michael Farrell, Frank Fahy and others; Sinn Fein demonstrations; 1917; Counties Sligo, Roscommon, Galway, Cork.pdf|page=39|British Army military intelligence file of 1917 Piece 209-036; Countess Constance Georgina Markievicz, Activities of (1919).pdf|page=60|British Army military intelligence file of the activities of Countess Constance Georgina Markievicz to 1919 Piece 207-127; Sinn Fein Activists - Constance Georgina Markievicz (Countess) (1922).pdf|page=12|British Army military intelligence file of the activities of Countess Constance Georgina Markievicz of 1922 </gallery>
== External links == {{Commons category|Constance Markiewicz|Constance Markievicz}} {{Wikiquote}} * [https://www.marxists.org/archive/markievicz/index.htm Constance Markievicz Archive] at marxists.org * [https://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:526517 'Women, ideals and the nation'] speech available from the [https://digital.library.villanova.edu/ Digital Library@Villanova University] * [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E900003-001/ Her speeches in the Treaty Debates] * [http://www.sligoheritage.com/archMark.htm Article on Constance Markievicz] * [http://our-ireland.com/the-irish-rebel-countess-markievicz/ Life As A Rebel & Co-Founder of The Irish Citizen's Army] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813101225/http://our-ireland.com/the-irish-rebel-countess-markievicz |date=13 August 2020 }} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20170121183331/http://www.easter1916.ie/index.php/people/a-z/countess-constance-markievicz Countess Markievicz and Easter 1916] * {{cite TIWW |article=Markievicz, Madame de |page=160 }}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|uk}} {{s-bef|before = William Field}} {{s-ttl|title = Member of Parliament for Dublin St Patrick's |years = 1918–1922}} {{s-non|reason = Constituency abolished}} {{s-par|ie/oi}} {{s-new|constituency}} {{s-ttl|title = {{nowrap|Teachta Dála for Dublin St Patrick's}} |years = 1918–1921}} {{s-non|reason = Constituency abolished}} {{s-off}} {{s-new|office}} {{s-ttl|title = Minister for Labour |years = 1919–1922}} {{s-aft|after = Joseph McGrath}} {{s-end}} {{Dublin South (Dáil constituency)/TDs}} {{2nd Ministry of Dáil Éireann}} {{3rd Ministry of Dáil Éireann}} {{Easter Rising}} {{Authority control}} {{Portal|Politics|Ireland|Modern history|Socialism}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Markievicz, Constance}} Category:1868 births Category:1927 deaths Category:19th-century Polish nobility Category:20th-century Polish nobility Category:20th-century women Teachtaí Dála Category:Académie Julian alumni Category:Anglican socialists Category:British suffragists Category:Burials at Glasnevin Cemetery Category:Catholic socialists Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism Category:Cumann na mBan members Category:Daughters of baronets Category:Early Sinn Féin TDs Category:Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Irish constituencies Category:Female revolutionaries Category:Fianna Fáil TDs Constance Category:Irish Citizen Army members Category:Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood Category:Irish prisoners sentenced to death Category:Irish revolutionaries Category:Irish socialist feminists Category:Members of the 1st Dáil Category:Members of the 2nd Dáil Category:Members of the 4th Dáil Category:Members of the 5th Dáil Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Dublin constituencies (1801–1922) Category:People of the Easter Rising Category:People of the Irish Civil War (Anti-Treaty side) Category:Politicians from County Sligo Category:Protestant Irish nationalists Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by the British military Category:UK MPs 1918–1922 Category:Women government ministers of the Republic of Ireland Category:Women in war 1900–1945 Category:Women in war in Ireland Category:Women of the Victorian era Category:Women sentenced to death Category:British women civil rights activists Category:Irish women civil rights activists