Sentenced to death - 100 years later honoured!

It's ironic that the British parliament should chose to honour Countess Markievicz this week given that just over 100 years ago they sentenced her to death for her part in the Easter Rising (link):

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/constance-markievicz-honoured-i...

Of course they were commemorating her as the first woman Member of Parliament but it's hard to see that in isolation from her pivotal role in the Republican movement and indeed her active service with the Irish Citizen Army over Easter 1916 when she shot dead one member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and injured at least one other member of the British Army.

Subsequently sentenced to death, Markievicz was unimpressed when the court "solely and only on account of her sex" commuted the sentence to imprisonment. When told of this, she said to her captors, "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me".

Her active role from the early period of the republican movement is well covered at this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Markievicz

It's clear from this brief account that she was a remarkable women involved in founding some of the key organisations such as Na Fianna Éireann and Inghinidhe na hÉireann the precursor to Cumann na mBan.

As indicated she fought with James Connolly’s Citizen Army during the rising at St Stephen's Green - the Republicanism by this time definitely tinged with Socialism.

She continued to be a rebel and after the Treaty fought with the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War subsequently becoming a member of Fianna Fail when it was founded.

She died on the 15th July 1927 of an appendicitis complication at the age of 59. Refused a state funeral at the time by the Free State Government things have now come full circle and she is ‘honoured’ by the British Parliament.

Another irony is that Markievicz was drawn first to the cultural revival surrounding the founding of the Gaelic League by Douglas Hyde. However she soon like many others realised culture without freedom and nationhood was bittersweet - sadly that's a lesson many in the Celtic countries today have still to learn

Some things do not change though both Na Fianna Éireann and Cumann na mBan which she helped found are still proscribed organisations in the UK!

Bernard Moffatt