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Constance Markievicz led a remarkable life, traversing the social and political landscape from daughter of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy to bohemian artist in Paris and London to a founding leader of the workers' militia known as the Irish Citizen Army in Dublin and the main founder of the first republican paramilitary organisation of 20th century Ireland (Na Fianna Eireann). She was second-in-command of the insurrectionary forces at Stephen's Green in the centre of Dublin during the 1916 armed Rebellion and sentenced to death for her part. Because she was a woman, her sentence (death by firing squad) was commuted to penal servitude to life. Markievicz was James Connolly's closest political co-worker and personal friend and attempted to continue the struggle for a worker's republic. Markievicz also trained the first paramilitary group (the Fianna) in how to use weapons and blow stuff up. She herself was often well-armed so that Connolly once described her as "looking like a walking advertisement for an enterprising small arms manufacturer". In November 1918 she became the first woman elected to the British parliament, standing as an Irish republican and socialist. She became the first female cabinet minister in Western Europe, serving as minister of labour in the underground Irish parliament. She opposed the 1921 Treaty and fought on the anti-Treaty side in the civil war. Her speech in the Dublin parliament against the Treaty was the only one which drew clear class lines. She died in 1927 of complications arising from peritonitis. Below are just some of her writings that I collected back in the late 1980s and which I began sticking up on The Irish Revolution blog when I started it in 2011. Starting with the statement issued by James Larkin's Workers Union of Ireland upon Markievicz's death: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/larkins-workers-union-on-constance-markievicz/ Markievicz speech in the Irish parliament against the 1921 Treaty: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/markievicz-speech-against-the-1921-treaty/ Markievicz speech in the Irish parliament in favour of women's franchise (the Treatyites were thinking of delaying women's franchise because they feared women would be majority opposed to the Treaty as the the vast majority of female republican activists were): https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/markievicz-speech-on-womens-franchise-1922/ 1923 Markievicz pamphlet *What Irish Republicans Stand For:* https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2018/02/04/constance-de-markievicz-what-irish-republicans-stand-for/ (This was written not long after the conclusion of the civil war) Below is the oration she gave on the second anniversary of the murder of two Fianna lads by the Free State regime: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/markievicz-oration-at-second-anniversary-of-murder-of-fianna-members-cole-and-colley/ Markievicz on some of the women who took part in the 1916 Easter Rising: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/constance-markievicz-on-some-women-in-easter-week/ Two articles on the conditions of women in English jails: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/conditions-of-women-in-english-jails-2/ Here Markievicz looks back at her youth in the Sligo aristocracy and her road to the Irish revolution: https://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/constance-markievicz-on-arthur-griffith-and-the-sinn-fein-organisation/ _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
