Countess Markievicz Bust

Photo credit - Hunter Kahn @ Wikipedia

The Irish political activist, revolutionist, and suffragette Countess Markievicz’s bronze bust stands in the heart of Dublin at St. Stephen’s Green Park. Markievicz was the first woman elected to the House of Commons and the first female cabinet minister in Europe.

Seamus Murphy created it, and it was unveiled in 1954. It depicts Markievicz wearing her Irish Citizen Army uniform. The bust stands on a stone column engraved on its front with the details: “Constance Markievicz; Major; Irish Citizen Army; 1916,” and on its side: “A valiant woman who fought for Ireland in 1916.”

Constance Georgine Markievicz (1868-1927), also known as Countess Markievicz, was born in London into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family and grew up in County Sligo, Ireland. In her late 20s, while studying painting in Paris, she met her future husband, Count Casimir Dunin-Markievicz of Poland. In 1903, the couple moved to Dublin, where Markievicz became involved with Irish politics. Five years later, she joined the revolutionary women’s group Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) and the Sinn Féin political party. The following year, she founded the republican organization Na Fianna Éireann (Soldiers of Ireland).

In 1911, Markievicz got arrested for protesting against King George V’s visit to Ireland; it was the first of her many arrests and imprisonments for her political activism. Two years later, she joined the socialist Irish Citizen Army (ICA), and three years later, she was part of its Easter Rising against the British government in Ireland and fought in St Stephen’s Green. She was arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death; fortunately, the punishment got reduced to life in prison due to her gender.

She was released in the following year but soon returned to prison for supposedly plotting against the British government.

In 1918, while imprisoned, she was elected to the House of Commons as the representative for Dublin’s St. Patrick’s division, becoming the first woman elected to the British House of Commons; she did not take her seat because she refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the king.

After her release, she served as the minister of labor in the newly founded Dáil Éireann (Irish Assembly). Four years after the Dáil Éireann was incorporated as the lower house of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament), she was elected to the parliament but again refused to swear allegiance to the king and gave up her seat.

In 1926, she joined the nationalist Fianna Fáil party and was elected to the Dáil Éireann the following year. She died a month later before she took her seat.

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