Irish history

London socialist-feminist discussion group: Who was Constance Markiewicz?

Date: 
10 October, 2008 - 21:30
Location: 

Lucas Arms, 245a Gray's Inn Road, London

Description: 

Constance Gore-Booth was born into an Anglo-Irish landowning family in 1868. In her 20s in London she became comitted to votes for women.

Later, after marrying Count Casimir Markiewicz from Poland, and moving to Dublin she became involved in the Irish nationalist movement. In 1908 Constance joined Sinn Fein. But she was also becoming more interested in the struggles of Irish workers.

During the Dublin lock-out of 1913 she threw herself into solidarity work. She took part in the Easter Rising of April 1916, was arrested and charged with treason. Initially condemned to death, her sentence was was commuted to life imprisonment, then she was released in 1917.

Constance Markiewicz was the only woman who was successful in the 1918 General Election (as a Sinn Fein candidate) but did not attend the House of Commons in London. She opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Come and hear about and discuss the fascinating political life of Constance Markiewicz.

Download leaflet here.

1. 1933. Ennis: the town. Background: Ireland's two revolutions

Author: 
Sean Matgamna

Ennis, Christmas Eve 1933

On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1933, in the West of Ireland town of Ennis, County Clare, members of the Gardai visited 26 labourers. They handed each one of them a summons to appear in Court on charges of intimidation, assault, and conspiracy, in mid-January 1934.

2. Communism in Ireland

Author: 
Sean Matgamna

Communism in Ireland

What of communism in Ireland? James Connolly, whose whole history suggests that he would have rallied to the Russian Revolution and joined in the work of building the new Communist International, was of course dead 18 months before the Bolshevik Revolution. Jim Larkin, who would join the Communist International, was in America, and in the last part of his stay there, in jail. He would not return to Ireland until 1923.

3. The Ennis bourgeoisie and the Ennis workers

Author: 
Sean Matgamna

The Ennis bourgeoisie

The fact that the Irish national bourgeoisie did not lead the national movement in 1916 and after did not inhibit them from from creating a thickly mythological account of Irish history as a nationalist, or ethnic-sectarian, heroic and unrelenting struggle for freedom.