Speaker 1: Hello, and Happy Saturday. Constance Markovitch was born a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty five years ago on February four, eight sixty eight.
Speaker 1: She was an Irish political activist and the first woman
Speaker 1: elected to the British Parliament and played a role in
Speaker 1: the Easter Rising of nineteen sixteen. When we originally aired
Speaker 1: this episode, we've re aired our prior episode on the
Speaker 1: Easter Rising as a Saturday Classics shortly beforehand. We are
Speaker 1: not doing that this time around, since at least so far,
Speaker 1: we haven't really been repeating Saturday Classics, but just for
Speaker 1: folks who are interested in more on that part of
Speaker 1: her story, it is still in our feed. It originally
Speaker 1: aired on April. This episode originally aired on March nineteen
Speaker 1: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy be Wilson and I'm Holly fry So. Back
Speaker 1: in and also as our most recent Saturday Classic, we
Speaker 1: did an episode on the Easter Rising, that was an
Speaker 1: armed rebellion that struck Ireland in nineteen sixteen, and in
Speaker 1: that episode we made a couple of brief mentions of
Speaker 1: Constance Markavitch, and I made an aside that she was
Speaker 1: one of the most fascinating characters that I learned about
Speaker 1: while we're searching that episode, and that if I had
Speaker 1: found out about her earlier, the episode might have been
Speaker 1: all about her of about the Easter Rising in general.
Speaker 1: So she's been on my short list ever since then,
Speaker 1: which probably gives you a sense of how long my
Speaker 1: short list is, since that was two years ago and
Speaker 1: we are just now getting around to it. We've also
Speaker 1: gotten a few requests for a show on her recently,
Speaker 1: so I thought it was finally time for her to
Speaker 1: make it up to the top of that list. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of conflict in Ireland during this period
Speaker 1: of history, and Constance Markovitch was involved in a lot
Speaker 1: of it. So we're not going to get back into
Speaker 1: the details of the Easter Rising again. That is why
Speaker 1: we had it as our most recent Saturday Classic for
Speaker 1: maybe folks who are newer to the show or don't
Speaker 1: really remember, so that is easy to find in the
Speaker 1: archive um for that part of the story, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about, so we're not going
Speaker 1: to get into the Easter Rizing so much today. Constance
Speaker 1: Markovitch was born Constance Georgine gore Booth on February four eight.
Speaker 1: Her father was Henry gore Booth and her mother was
Speaker 1: Georgina may Hill. Constance was their oldest child, and she
Speaker 1: was born in a townhouse that the family kept near
Speaker 1: Buckingham Palace in London. She'd eventually have four younger siblings,
Speaker 1: so she was always closest to her sister Ava, who
Speaker 1: was two years younger. Constance grew up and was educated
Speaker 1: at Lisadell House. Although her mother was from Yorkshire. On
Speaker 1: her father's side, the family had lived in this of
Speaker 1: Ireland since sixty one. That was when Paul Gore was
Speaker 1: made a baronet and granted part of the land that
Speaker 1: would become Lisadella State. The house itself that she was
Speaker 1: raised in was a lot newer than that, though it
Speaker 1: was only about thirty years old when Constance was born.
Speaker 1: This was a forty eight room country house decorated with
Speaker 1: paintings by the old masters, and there the young Constance
Speaker 1: was educated by governesses and tutors. She was described as
Speaker 1: a happy child, high spirited, and excellent on horseback. Her
Speaker 1: father made repeated expeditions to the Arctic, almost as a hobby,
Speaker 1: and he seemed to raise his oldest daughter with the
Speaker 1: same eye for adventure. She was also tomboyish, and she
Speaker 1: didn't like most of the activities that were considered feminine.
Speaker 1: She did like to draw into sketch, and she was
Speaker 1: considered to be quite good at it, and she got older,
Speaker 1: she also learned to shoot, and she developed a fondness
Speaker 1: for playing pranks on people. This is a very affluent family.
Speaker 1: Constance and her family were part of the Protestant Ascendancy,
Speaker 1: and this was a term that was coined in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century to describe the domination of majority Catholic Ireland
Speaker 1: by a Protestant and mostly English minority. It was also
Speaker 1: used to describe the members of the Protestant aristocracy that
Speaker 1: were part of this domination as well. So even though
Speaker 1: this term came into use in the eighteenth century, the
Speaker 1: practices involved with it went back much farther. They were
Speaker 1: largely associated with Oliver Cromwell's conquest of Ireland and with
Speaker 1: the period following the Glorious Revolution in six eight The
Speaker 1: Protestant Ascendancy turned former Irish Catholic landowners into tenant farmers
Speaker 1: working for Protestant landlords, many of whom were English, and
Speaker 1: generations later these landlords were not viewed as properly Irish
Speaker 1: and were instead described as Anglo Irish. Constance's father had
Speaker 1: at least a thousand families as tenants, although some of
Speaker 1: his tenants managed huge acreages that they subdi bided and
Speaker 1: then least two other tenants, so he had these direct
Speaker 1: tenants and then sort of an indirect pool of tenants
Speaker 1: that some of his tenants are managing. A lot of
Speaker 1: this property was adjoining Litadel, but some of it was
Speaker 1: in Manchester. To be clear, this entire system of Protestant
Speaker 1: landowners managing land that had previously been owned by Irish
Speaker 1: Catholics directly was exploited and unjust, and it contributed to
Speaker 1: a lot of problems in Irish history. But as landlords went,
Speaker 1: Henry gore Booth had a reputation for being fair and reasonable.
Speaker 1: Many Protestant landlords were basically absentee landlords, but the gore
Speaker 1: Booth family was in residence at Lisadel for at least
Speaker 1: part of every year. Henry gore Booth also charged lower
Speaker 1: rents than the market value, and he ran the whole
Speaker 1: enterprise in a very organized thoroughly documented way with orderly,
Speaker 1: up to date bookkeeping. If this seems like a really
Speaker 1: low bar kind of is is, but it's also indicative
Speaker 1: of like how messed up this whole system was. That
Speaker 1: like that was the blar that made a person just
Speaker 1: be seen as a good landlord. He also did seem
Speaker 1: to treat his tenants pretty compassionately, if also paternalistically. In
Speaker 1: the late eighteen seventies, just a couple of decades after
Speaker 1: the Great Famine in Ireland, heavy rains crossed widespread crop failures,
Speaker 1: and for a lot of Irish tenants this meant going
Speaker 1: to a workhouse and losing their homes and their land.
Speaker 1: Many of Henry gore Booth's tenants still wound up in workhouses,
Speaker 1: but he arranged for them to go to one that
Speaker 1: he personally oversaw without having to forfeit their lands or
Speaker 1: their homes to do it. So still a bad situation,
Speaker 1: but not as bad as it could have been. The
Speaker 1: rest of the family was part of this approach as well.
Speaker 1: During this same time, Lady gore Booths, Constance and the
Speaker 1: older children set up a food distribution system for the tenants,
Speaker 1: and they arranged delivery of straw to homes where they
Speaker 1: weren't any beds. Both Constance and Eva tried to be
Speaker 1: benevolently helpful, and apparently they were genuine enough about it
Speaker 1: that they really endeared themselves to the tenants, who they
Speaker 1: referred to as country people. In eighteen eighty six, when
Speaker 1: Constance turned eighteen, she spent six months in Italy with
Speaker 1: a governess before making her formal debut. She was presented
Speaker 1: to Queen Victoria as a debutante on March seventeenth, eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, which was during the Queen's Golden Jubilee. Year
Speaker 1: After her debut, Constant spent several seasons in London, where
Speaker 1: she was always described as the life of the party.
Speaker 1: Although she was popular, her behavior wasn't considered very ladylike.
Speaker 1: While the other young women in London tended to be
Speaker 1: coy and demure, Constance was vivacious and direct. Those pranks
Speaker 1: that she liked to play on people could also be
Speaker 1: kind of mocking and mean spirited, which may have turned
Speaker 1: off some suitors. She could also be very daring. One night,
Speaker 1: she actually jumped out of her carriage to physically get
Speaker 1: in between two men who were fighting on the street,
Speaker 1: calling for other passers by to come help her break
Speaker 1: up the fight. In one oft repeated story from this
Speaker 1: time in Constances life, one night a male guest at
Speaker 1: Lisadel was making a number of unwanted advances toward her,
Speaker 1: and then he was seated next to her at dinner.
Speaker 1: While they were eating, he put his hand on her
Speaker 1: knee and her response was to pick it up, hold
Speaker 1: it up for everyone to see, and exclaim, just look
Speaker 1: what I have found in my lap. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: good story. By the time she turned twenty five, tensions
Speaker 1: were high between Constants and her parents. She was basically
Speaker 1: a spinster at that point, and she was seen as
Speaker 1: an annoyance and a burden as they were all increasingly
Speaker 1: at odds with each other at home. Constance started asking
Speaker 1: to go away to art school, and she spent more
Speaker 1: time on art than socializing during her eight season in London.
Speaker 1: They finally gave her permission to go to the Slade
Speaker 1: School in London, which we will get to After a
Speaker 1: quick sponsor break, Constant started studying art at the Slade
Speaker 1: School in London in eightee. She still spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time back home in Sligo, but just being able
Speaker 1: to have some measure of independence helped to ease some
Speaker 1: of the tension between her and her parents. Constance and
Speaker 1: her sister Ava started socializing with lots of artists and writers,
Speaker 1: including William Butler Yates, who had ongoing connections with the
Speaker 1: gore Booth family and with the part of Ireland that
Speaker 1: they were living in. In Constance, Ava and their sister
Speaker 1: Mabel became focused on the issue of women's suffrage. Together
Speaker 1: they started a Votes for Women organization in County Sligo,
Speaker 1: with Constance serving as president, Ava as secretary, and Mabel
Speaker 1: as treasurer. And a speech at one of their meeting
Speaker 1: Constants posed the question of why, if women were so incompetent,
Speaker 1: had there been no enormous uprising against Queen Victoria. She
Speaker 1: also argued against organizations having separate auxiliary units just for women,
Speaker 1: because doing so set up women as a separate class
Speaker 1: from men. In eight Constance continued her study of art
Speaker 1: by moving to Paris to study at a studio run
Speaker 1: by Rodolph Julienne. She was at this point completely dedicated
Speaker 1: to this study, even wearing a wedding ring to symbolize
Speaker 1: that she was married to art. But not long after
Speaker 1: arriving in Paris, she met Polish playwright and artist Count
Speaker 1: Casimir Markovic. Constance and Casimir were immediately taken with each other.
Speaker 1: He was tall and handsome and six years younger than
Speaker 1: she was. He was also a very good painter. He was,
Speaker 1: being from Poland, very unlike most of the people that
Speaker 1: she had known in her life. He was also married,
Speaker 1: although his wife died in eight ninety nine, just a
Speaker 1: few weeks after he and Constance met. By the time
Speaker 1: Kasimir's wife died, he and Constance were already quite close.
Speaker 1: They had a passionate romance that involved lots of bicycling
Speaker 1: and at one point, a duel that Casimir fought to
Speaker 1: defend Constance's honor after someone insulted her at a costume ball.
Speaker 1: On September hundred, they got married. Constance's younger sister, Mabel,
Speaker 1: who had been engaged for years, also got married not
Speaker 1: long after, suggesting that the family was traditional enough to
Speaker 1: insist that the oldest daughter get married before the younger ones.
Speaker 1: Although Kasimir styled himself as a count, it is not
Speaker 1: completely clear whether he actually was one. If he did
Speaker 1: have some kind of title, he did not have a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and even though Constance came from quite
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Her father had died in January
Speaker 1: of nineteen hundred and virtually the entire estate was settled
Speaker 1: on her brother. So as the newlywed couple divided their
Speaker 1: time among pair riss Lisadel and the Markovic family estates
Speaker 1: in Poland, they mostly did it with the financial help
Speaker 1: of the family. On November nineteen o one, they had
Speaker 1: a daughter named Mayev. In nineteen o three, the Markovic
Speaker 1: family moved to a home in wrath Guar, which was
Speaker 1: at the time its own village but today is a
Speaker 1: suburb of Dublin. Constance's mother had secured the house for
Speaker 1: them and was also largely raising young Mave. Stanislaus, the
Speaker 1: count's son by his first marriage, moved into the wrath
Speaker 1: car home and may have visited from time to time.
Speaker 1: While living in Ireland, Constance and Casimir started spending more
Speaker 1: and more time among artistic and literary circles, and they
Speaker 1: joined an art society with William Butler Yates and George A. E. Russell,
Speaker 1: and Constance became increasingly interested in Irish nationalism. She met
Speaker 1: Maud Gonne, who was the founder of the Irish Nationalist
Speaker 1: Women's organization Daughters of Ireland, and started becoming involved in
Speaker 1: other nationalist organizations. At first, Constance's involvement in Irish nationalism
Speaker 1: was viewed with suspicion. It didn't make a lot of
Speaker 1: sense that the oldest daughter of an ascendancy family would
Speaker 1: take the side of Irish nationalists at all. After all,
Speaker 1: she was part of a minority ruling class that was
Speaker 1: almost the exact opposite of the idea of a free,
Speaker 1: independent Ireland. Aside from Ava, her relatives didn't approve of
Speaker 1: the connections she was making, and those connections suspected she
Speaker 1: was really a spy. She stuck with it, though, even
Speaker 1: as she and Kasimir started to drift apart. When they met,
Speaker 1: they had both had a tremendous passion for art in common,
Speaker 1: and now Constance's passion was becoming Irish nationalism and fighting
Speaker 1: for a free Ireland. And this was a passion that
Speaker 1: Kasimir just didn't share. You wouldn't necessarily think he would
Speaker 1: share it, he was not Irish. Earlier in their marriage,
Speaker 1: Constance had styled herself as a countess because she had
Speaker 1: married account but as they grew apart, she started calling
Speaker 1: herself madam, which was a fashionable thing to do among
Speaker 1: women in the movement. In the early nineteen hundreds, there
Speaker 1: were several different nationalists and separatist organizations operating in Ireland
Speaker 1: who wanted Ireland to be independent from the British Empire.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o five, Arthur Griffith established shin Fayne meaning
Speaker 1: We Ourselves or Ourselves Alone, which absorbed some of these organizations.
Speaker 1: Constance began attending chin Fayn meetings in nineteen o eight
Speaker 1: and she joined its council in nineteen o nine. Also
Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine, she co founded Nafenna Aaron also
Speaker 1: known as just the Fienna, which was an Irish nationalist
Speaker 1: scouting organization for boys. Part of its purpose was paramilitary.
Speaker 1: They were training boys and marksmanship and drilling and basically
Speaker 1: preparing them to join nationalist and republican militia as they
Speaker 1: got older. A lot of these boys were living in
Speaker 1: extreme poverty and thinking that a country life would help them.
Speaker 1: Constance least a large country house and basically operated it
Speaker 1: as a commune for them. Sometimes, the Fianna was known
Speaker 1: to pick fights with some of the more affluent Anglo
Speaker 1: Irish boys and more wealthy neighborhoods, which was something that
Speaker 1: Constance tacitly allowed. Throughout all of this, Constance also became
Speaker 1: more serious about feminism, but she didn't see this issue
Speaker 1: as separate from Irish nationalism. From her point of view,
Speaker 1: it would do no good for women to have the
Speaker 1: right to vote if Ireland did not have its own
Speaker 1: parliament to represent them, and it wasn't just about having
Speaker 1: the right to vote, because that was the right men had.
Speaker 1: Every person who had the right to vote needed to
Speaker 1: be making an active and positive contribution to the society
Speaker 1: they were living in. So she thought Ireland needed to
Speaker 1: be its own free nation, and that a free Ireland
Speaker 1: also needed to incorporate equal rights for women as its
Speaker 1: core identity as a nation. She also felt that a
Speaker 1: free Ireland needed to be free of the kinds of
Speaker 1: wealth disparities that she had personally benefited from for her
Speaker 1: whole life. So in reality, Constance's political views united feminism, socialism,
Speaker 1: and Irish nationalism all into one package. And in this
Speaker 1: work Constance gave speeches she wrote and edited for a
Speaker 1: feminist journal in En She demonstrated against a visit of
Speaker 1: King George the Fifth and Queen Mary, avoiding arrest herself
Speaker 1: but having to bail out one of her friends and
Speaker 1: later testify that she, not the man on trial, was
Speaker 1: the one who had burned a flag in protest. This,
Speaker 1: by the way, did not sway the court, and the
Speaker 1: man in question went to prison. In nineteen twelve, Constants
Speaker 1: and some of her friends started serving Irish stew to
Speaker 1: school children, both to feed them because they were living
Speaker 1: in poverty, and also to draw attention to the fact
Speaker 1: that a law that was allowing local authorities to provide
Speaker 1: school lunches had been written not to include Ireland, where
Speaker 1: a disproportioned a number of school children were living in poverty.
Speaker 1: She did similar work during the nineteen Dublin lockout. This
Speaker 1: was a massive labor dispute in which companies responded to
Speaker 1: growing efforts to unionize by locking employees out of their jobs.
Speaker 1: This dispute started at the Dublin United Tramway Company and
Speaker 1: then spread out through other industries. Eventually, about twenty workers
Speaker 1: in Dublin had been locked out of their jobs, and
Speaker 1: violent clashes between workers and police were ongoing. Constance Markovich
Speaker 1: and Delia Larkin, who was the sister of labor organizer
Speaker 1: James Larkin, ran a soup kitchen during this lockout that
Speaker 1: fed about three thousand people a day. By August thirteen,
Speaker 1: James Larkin was a wanted man. He stayed at the
Speaker 1: Markovitch home on August that year, and then the next
Speaker 1: day Constance and some others helps to smuggle him past
Speaker 1: police presence so that he could make a promised public appearance.
Speaker 1: That appearance did not last long. The he got onto
Speaker 1: a balcony at the Imperial Hotel, where police promptly spotted
Speaker 1: him and arrested him. When Larkin was being escorted to
Speaker 1: a police car, Constance went to tell him goodbye and
Speaker 1: good luck, and a police officer struck her in the
Speaker 1: face with the baton. This sparked a melee between police
Speaker 1: and workers in which two men were killed with police
Speaker 1: batons and more than four hundred people, including both workers
Speaker 1: and police, were injured. This incident became one of several
Speaker 1: days in history known as Bloody Sunday. Anytime somebody sends
Speaker 1: us a message asking if we will do a podcast
Speaker 1: on Bloody Sunday, I have to ask which one. There
Speaker 1: are so many that there are in fact two in
Speaker 1: this episode. The Doublin Lockout is often cited as one
Speaker 1: of the precursors to the nineteen sixteen Easter Rising, which
Speaker 1: we're going to touch on. After a sponsor break, Constance
Speaker 1: Markovitch continued her work with the Soup Kitchen during the
Speaker 1: remainder of the Dublin Lockout, which ended unsuccessfully at least
Speaker 1: from the workers point of view, in nineteen fourteen. Basically
Speaker 1: at that point everyone was returning for work having gotten
Speaker 1: none of the improvements that they were trying to campaign for.
Speaker 1: By then, her marriage to Casimir Markovitch was basically over.
Speaker 1: Their split was amicable, though, and he left Ireland in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen to take a position as a war correspondent.
Speaker 1: Tensions in Ireland were continuing to escalate. The Government of
Speaker 1: Ireland Act was given Royal assent on September eighteenth, nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: which was intended to give Ireland home rule within the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, but on the same day the Suspensary Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen fourteen delayed the Government of Ireland Act from
Speaker 1: being put into effect because of World War One. No
Speaker 1: one in Ireland was happy with this situation. Unionists who
Speaker 1: wanted to remain part of Great Britain objected to the
Speaker 1: Government of Land Act in general, as did the Radical
Speaker 1: Republicans who wanted Ireland to be independent, and the moderate faction,
Speaker 1: who were happy for Ireland to be part of the
Speaker 1: UK as long as they had home rule, were angry
Speaker 1: that the Government of Ireland Act had been delayed. This conflict,
Speaker 1: which I mean this had been building for years, eventually
Speaker 1: led to the nineteen sixteen Easter Rising, which was an
Speaker 1: armed uprising against British rule in Ireland. Our previous episode
Speaker 1: has more detail on the rising itself. Constance Markovitch joined
Speaker 1: the Irish Citizen Army and acted as a liaison officer
Speaker 1: during the Easter Rising. She also acted as a sniper,
Speaker 1: and when she was finally arrested, she famously kissed her
Speaker 1: pistol before surrendering it. Markovitch was one of many women
Speaker 1: who took part in the Easter Rising, but she was
Speaker 1: the only one who was court martialed. Afterward, she was
Speaker 1: kept in a cell by herself, and while she was
Speaker 1: awaiting sentence, she and all the other prisoners could hear
Speaker 1: the executions of those who had been sentenced to death
Speaker 1: being carried out every morning. In the end, she was
Speaker 1: found guilty and sentenced to death, but her sentence was
Speaker 1: commuted to life in prison with hard labor on account
Speaker 1: of her gender. When she was given the news, she
Speaker 1: said she'd wish they'd had the decency to shoot her. Eventually,
Speaker 1: she was moved to Mountjoy Jail, where she could no
Speaker 1: longer hear her compatriots being executed every morning, and where
Speaker 1: her family could visit her. When her sister brought her
Speaker 1: the news that James Connolly, who was one of the
Speaker 1: most prominent figures in the Rising, somebody she had been
Speaker 1: working with for a long time, had been executed, Constance asked,
Speaker 1: why didn't they let me die with my friends. Authorities
Speaker 1: were worried that Constance would develop a following if she
Speaker 1: was kept in a prison in Ireland, so she was
Speaker 1: transferred to a prison in England, where she was placed
Speaker 1: in the general prison population. She and the other incarcerated
Speaker 1: women were housed in squalor, only allowed to write one
Speaker 1: letter a month, and fed barely enough to keep them alive.
Speaker 1: While imprisoned, she converted to Catholicism. Most of the surviving
Speaker 1: participants in the Easter Rising were released from prison in
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen seventeen. Constance was released on June
Speaker 1: eighteenth of that year. She returned to Dublin to a
Speaker 1: hero's welcome and was formally received into the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: a week later. Though she was being treated as a celebrity.
Speaker 1: Markovic picked right up where she had left off. She
Speaker 1: continued to be involved in numerous organizations, including being president
Speaker 1: of kuman Aman, chief scout of the Fiena, a major
Speaker 1: of the Irish Citizen Army, on and on. She was
Speaker 1: also elected to the Shenfean Executive Council and soon she
Speaker 1: and other members were back in prison, partly because of
Speaker 1: anti conscription activities. Again this was during World War One,
Speaker 1: and partly because the British government just didn't think it
Speaker 1: was possible to both fight World War One and fight
Speaker 1: Irish nationalists at the same time, so they imprisoned all
Speaker 1: the movements leaders. This time, though, she was treated as
Speaker 1: a political prisoner rather than being in the general prison population.
Speaker 1: A general election was called in the United Kingdom immediately
Speaker 1: after the end of World War One. It was held
Speaker 1: on December fourteenth, nineteen eighteen. Shin Fayn ran Constance Markovic
Speaker 1: as its candidate for the St Patrick division of Dublin.
Speaker 1: She won by a wide margin, defeating an incumbent of
Speaker 1: twenty six years and becoming the first woman to be
Speaker 1: elected as a member of Parliament. She was at the
Speaker 1: time in prison. In spite of half of its candidates
Speaker 1: being incarcerated at the time, seventy three members of shin
Speaker 1: Fain were elected in nineteen eighteen. They defeated candidates from
Speaker 1: the Irish Parliamentary Party in almost all of Ireland. This
Speaker 1: was a huge upset. Those who were free, which was
Speaker 1: the portion of them were not in prison at the time,
Speaker 1: didn't take their their seats in Westminster, though in Parliament convened. Instead,
Speaker 1: they formed the First Doyle, which was basically a parliament
Speaker 1: for the Irish Republic. Aimon de Valera, who had been
Speaker 1: a leader in the Easter Rising, had been spared execution
Speaker 1: because he was an American citizen, meaning that he wasn't
Speaker 1: guilty of treason. He was elected President of the Doyle
Speaker 1: and he made Markovic, who is still in prison, his
Speaker 1: Minister of Labor. She was finally released from prison in
Speaker 1: March of nineteen nineteen. She and the other She and
Speaker 1: the other members of the movement who were imprisoned were
Speaker 1: basically released out of the fear of the ongoing flu pandemic.
Speaker 1: Officials were worried that if they contracted influenza and died
Speaker 1: in prison, they would all become martyrs. By this point,
Speaker 1: guerrilla warfare had been underway for months and what became
Speaker 1: known as the Irish War of Independence or the Anglo
Speaker 1: Irish War. As Minister of Labor, Constance kept strict security procedures,
Speaker 1: instituted a labor court to resolve disputes, and basically tried
Speaker 1: to mediate between shin Faine and the Labor Party. Her
Speaker 1: Department of Labor worked out of a building that claimed
Speaker 1: to be an apartment leasing office and also contained several pianos,
Speaker 1: so people working there could pretend to be giving piano
Speaker 1: lessons if there was a police raid. Does make it
Speaker 1: super clear what was going on. Uh. Rather than joining
Speaker 1: the rest of the members of parliament in the regular
Speaker 1: British Parliament, they had founded their own parliament, which they
Speaker 1: were having to operate in secret because it wasn't actually
Speaker 1: legal for them to be doing it, and at some
Speaker 1: points various members of that parliament were doing so from prison.
Speaker 1: I find this whole thing fascinating. So Consence was arrested
Speaker 1: again in October of nineteen nineteen. During all of this.
Speaker 1: By that point the Doyle and most of the organizations
Speaker 1: that she was involved with had all been outlawed. After
Speaker 1: her release, she managed to run the Department of Labor
Speaker 1: while in hiding for several months before being arrested once
Speaker 1: again in September of nineteen e when the car that
Speaker 1: she was riding in was pulled over by police. This time,
Speaker 1: while in prison, she learned to speak Irish. This is
Speaker 1: that moment I've had several, but it's that moment when
Speaker 1: I was looking over this earlier where I'm like, she
Speaker 1: was born a rich, spoiled girl. Yes, we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit more at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's just it's one of those times where you particularly
Speaker 1: these times in prison that clearly were very transformative for her.
Speaker 1: I'm always like, this is so far removed from probably
Speaker 1: what anyone who knew her as a child thought her
Speaker 1: life path would be. Throughout all of this violence was
Speaker 1: going on in Ireland, including another Bloody Sunday, this one
Speaker 1: on November twenty one, which started with the assassination of
Speaker 1: several British intelligence officers in Dublin and ended with the
Speaker 1: Royal Irish Constabulary and British Auxiliary Division Police killing at
Speaker 1: least thirteen spectators during a Gaelic football match. On December ten,
Speaker 1: twenty Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Acts that attempted
Speaker 1: to partition Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, with
Speaker 1: two separate parliaments that each had two different home rule jurisdictions,
Speaker 1: but because of this ongoing violence and the Irish War
Speaker 1: of Independence, this never really went into effect in the
Speaker 1: southern part of Ireland. Instead, just under a year later,
Speaker 1: after lengthy negotiations, representatives of the British government and of
Speaker 1: the Irish Republic signed the Anglo Irish Treaty, which established
Speaker 1: what had formerly been designated as Southern Ireland as the
Speaker 1: Irish Free State Constance. Markovic, Aimon de Valera and many
Speaker 1: other Irish nationalists did not agree with this treaty. They
Speaker 1: wanted Ireland to be its own self governing republic, but
Speaker 1: the Anglo Irish Treaty set up an Irish Free State
Speaker 1: within the British Empire. Members of the Free States Parliament
Speaker 1: were also required to take an oath of allegiance to
Speaker 1: the Crown, which its most nationalist members, including Markovitch, refused
Speaker 1: to do. There was a walk out of like this.
Speaker 1: This treaty was ultimately passed on the Irish side by
Speaker 1: a kind of narrow majority, and there was a mass
Speaker 1: walkout of the people who didn't agree with it after
Speaker 1: it had been signed. Markovitch left Ireland for a time
Speaker 1: after the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty. She traveled
Speaker 1: both to Paris and then to the United States, and
Speaker 1: there she went on a lecture tour to support total
Speaker 1: Irish independence. When she got home, she found that Ireland
Speaker 1: once again was being struck by violence, now in the
Speaker 1: Irish Civil War, which was between Irish Republicans and Irish nationalists.
Speaker 1: These are people that had previously been mostly on the
Speaker 1: same side, now against one another. Markovitch, who was now
Speaker 1: fifty four, joined the nationalist cause once again, taking up
Speaker 1: arms as a sniper. In nine she was arrested and
Speaker 1: in prisoned again. Many of the Irish nationalists imprisoned at
Speaker 1: the time had started a hunger strike, which Markovitch joined
Speaker 1: as soon as she was incarcerated. She fasted for three days,
Speaker 1: at which point the strike was called off because of
Speaker 1: the death of one of the participants. She was released
Speaker 1: from her final incarceration on Christmas Eve. Out of prison.
Speaker 1: Constance Markovitch was really disappointed in what Ireland had become.
Speaker 1: She had envisioned a free Ireland that would be a
Speaker 1: radical workers democracy, and instead they add this Irish free
Speaker 1: state that was still part of the British Empire, even
Speaker 1: to the point of having to have an oath of
Speaker 1: allegiance to the Crown if you were going to be
Speaker 1: a member of its parliament. She was also disappointed that
Speaker 1: a lot of the social hierarchies were in place now
Speaker 1: as had been before. She started turning her attention to
Speaker 1: local politics and service, including working with the Wrath Minds
Speaker 1: Urban Council to build wash houses and public baths to
Speaker 1: serve the four a hundred thousand residents who did not
Speaker 1: have running water in their homes. In ninety six, she
Speaker 1: joined Piena Foil, the newly established Irish Republican party, which
Speaker 1: had split off from shin Fain. She continued to be
Speaker 1: politically active for the rest of her life. She died
Speaker 1: in Dublin on July fifteenth, nine seven, not long after
Speaker 1: she had had an appendectomy. Casimir and Stanislaus were both
Speaker 1: with her when she died, although at that point she
Speaker 1: was estranged from her daughter mayeve. Her sister Ava died
Speaker 1: the year before, having spent most of her life dedicated
Speaker 1: to social and political issues, working with her lifelong partner
Speaker 1: Esther Roper, who she had been with since eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: Constance's funeral was attended by thousands of people, with a
Speaker 1: procession that took hours to pass. After her death and
Speaker 1: really before, Frankly, people had a lot of disparaging comments
Speaker 1: to make about Constance Markovich. Playwright Sean O'Casey, who was
Speaker 1: in the Irish Citizen Army with her, called her a
Speaker 1: quote Catherine Wheel of irresponsibility. Judge William Evelyn Wiley, who
Speaker 1: was present at her court martial, later on wrote of it,
Speaker 1: saying that she had curled up completely and cried a
Speaker 1: lot and said things like I'm only a woman and
Speaker 1: you cannot shoot a woman, basically moaning the whole time.
Speaker 1: Official court records say the opposite. They say that she
Speaker 1: actually stood up to the court. In her account, she
Speaker 1: said in court that she had fought for Ireland's independence
Speaker 1: during Easter Week and was as ready to die for
Speaker 1: it now as she had been then. Her correspondence during
Speaker 1: her incarcerations, which were I mean this correspondence was consistently
Speaker 1: steadfast and resolute and sometimes even optimistic. Also suggests that
Speaker 1: like a teary breakdown and a bunch of moaning and
Speaker 1: court would have been completely out of character for her. Basically,
Speaker 1: in the years after her death, she was criticized as
Speaker 1: being a rich dilettante who was just doing all of
Speaker 1: this work for attention. There are, of course, some very
Speaker 1: legitimate conversations to be had about her work, like whether
Speaker 1: it is right to arm young boys and indoctrinate them
Speaker 1: as a separatist paramilitary unit, or whether her unyielding insistence
Speaker 1: on total independence for Ireland was ultimately divisive. I was
Speaker 1: not what a lot of the criticism was about, though.
Speaker 1: It was about, uh so, what she wore, That she
Speaker 1: had my nice uniform made for herself, that she had
Speaker 1: a portrait made of herself with her gun like. People
Speaker 1: made a big deal out of things that she was
Speaker 1: wearing and the way that she talked, and the fact
Speaker 1: that she had come from rich affluence. Uh and the
Speaker 1: whole only doing it for attention claim, I think is
Speaker 1: one that you mainly hear about women and children, uh
Speaker 1: and also doesn't really jive with having gone to prison
Speaker 1: repeatedly and been on hunger strikes and done hard labor.
Speaker 1: Like none of that really adds up to oh, just
Speaker 1: doing if her attention, which is a gendered and dismissive
Speaker 1: comment to make in the first place. Uh. Some of
Speaker 1: the criticisms along those lines have softened in the decades
Speaker 1: since her death, and a portrait of her was presented
Speaker 1: to the Speaker of the House of Commons on February.
Speaker 1: At least it was announced that was going to happen.
Speaker 1: I did not find an article saying that, yes, it
Speaker 1: actually did. Um, it was part The presentation of that
Speaker 1: portrait was part of the year long celebration of the
Speaker 1: Representation of the People Act of nineteen eighteen, which became
Speaker 1: law on February sixth of that year and gave um
Speaker 1: all men over twenty one and all women property owners
Speaker 1: over the edge of thirty the right to vote. So
Speaker 1: it was part of a suffrage celebration. Heay so much
Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is
Speaker 1: out of the archive, if you heard an email address
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