A REMARKABLE WOMAN

Shannon News, 14 October 1927, Page 2

A REMARKABLE WOMAN

Career of "Red Countess" ONCE SENTENCED TO DEATH Countess Markievicz, Irish rebel and the first woman elected to the British Parliament, died in Dublin a few weeks ago. She was operated upon on July 1 in a Dublin hospital for appendicitis, and had "a relapse. A second operation was subsequently performed. Mme. Markievicz-—she was generally addressed and referred to as "madame"—was perhaps the most remarkable of th e extraordinary group of women politicians which was produced by the ferment of the Irish "war." She was exceptional in the sense, that she not only urged others to -violence, bue herself set an example. Deceased was sentenced to death in 1916 for taking part in the Easter rebellion in Dublin. The sentence was later commuted, but her fellow-lead-ers were shot against a wall. Her crime was that, attired in the green uniform of a male officier of the Sinn Fein organisation, she had commanded 120 rebels in charge of one of the Dublin squares. When called on by the British to surrender she kissed her 'revolver before handing, it to the officer who captured her. Art Student in Paris. Constance Markievicz was made up of extraordinary elements. She was the daughter of an old Sligo county family. She ran away and became an art student in Paris in days when women did not do that sort of thing. She was a daredevil of the huntingfield and an absolutely fearless woman 6f Amazonian powers of endurance. She fell in love with a Polish artist nobleman _during her days in Paris, and they were married in Dublin. Then she' plunged into the Larkin .Labour troubles in Dublin. She was arrested for striking a policeman during a Socialist demonstration. The deceased was adored, by the poor of Dublin. They were guests in her big house in the Dublin mountains while she herself was forced to live in poor circumstances in the slums. The count after a time went back to Poland and became commercial attache to the American consulate in Warsaw. At the outbreak of war lie enlisted as a trooper in the Russian

Army. One of the saddest women to-day Is the aged mother of Countess Markievicz, the Dowager Lady Gore-Booth, widow of the fifth baronet. She it is who has had much of the care and upbringing of Maeve, the countess' young daughter, who was called to her mother's bedside in a Dublin hospital by a wireless appeal, broadcast in England. Perilous Phase of Career

It was after her release from prison during the general amnesty that followed the Easter rebellion that "the Red Countess," as she was known, came to a now and still more perilous phase of her career. She was one of the many Republican leaders always attacking the Government's authority and always "on the run". She was captured and imprisoned more than once.

The countess was elected to Westminster in 19IS, but never took her seat, and it was left to-Lady A&tor to become the first active British woman M.P. To the end she remained a leader in the De Valera party and a member of the Bail. She died at 51 years of age.