Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy the 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 were quests 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 uh Constance Markevitch was involved in a
Speaker 1: lot of it, so we're not going to get back
Speaker 1: into the details of the Easter rising again. That is
Speaker 1: why we had it as our most recent Saturday Classic
Speaker 1: for maybe folks who are newer to the show or
Speaker 1: don't really remember, so that is easy to find in
Speaker 1: the archive um for that part of the story. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to talk about, so we're not
Speaker 1: going to get into the Easter rizing so much today.
Speaker 1: Constance Markovitch was born Constance Georgine Gore Booth on February
Speaker 1: four eight. Her father was Henry Gore Booth and her
Speaker 1: mother was Georgina may Hill. Constance was their oldest child,
Speaker 1: and she was born in a townhouse that the family
Speaker 1: kept near Buckingham Palace in London. She'd eventually have four
Speaker 1: younger siblings that she was always closest to her sister, Ava,
Speaker 1: who was two years younger. Constance grew up and was
Speaker 1: educated at Lisadel House. Although her mother was from Yorkshire
Speaker 1: on her father's side, the family had lived in this
Speaker 1: part of Ireland since sixty one. That was when Paul
Speaker 1: Gore was made a baronet and granted part of the
Speaker 1: land that would become Lizadella state. The house itself that
Speaker 1: she was raised in was a lot newer than that,
Speaker 1: though it was only about thirty years old when Constance
Speaker 1: was born. This was a forty eight room country house
Speaker 1: decorated with paintings by the old masters, and there the
Speaker 1: young Constance was educated by governesses and tutors. She was
Speaker 1: described as a happy child, high spirited, and excellent on horseback.
Speaker 1: Her father made repeated expeditions to the Arctic, almost as
Speaker 1: a hobby, and he seemed to raise his oldest daughter
Speaker 1: with the same eye for adventure. She was also tomboyish
Speaker 1: and she didn't like most of the activities that were
Speaker 1: considered feminine. She did like to draw into sketch and
Speaker 1: she was considered to be quite good at it, and
Speaker 1: she got older, she also learned to shoot, and she
Speaker 1: developed a fondness for playing pranks on people. This is
Speaker 1: a very affluent family. Constants and her family were part
Speaker 1: of the Protestant Ascendancy, and this is a term that
Speaker 1: was coined in the eighteenth century to describe the domination
Speaker 1: of majority Catholic Ireland by a Protestant and mostly English minority.
Speaker 1: It was also used to describe the members of the
Speaker 1: Protestant aristocracy that were part of this domination as well.
Speaker 1: So even though this term came into use in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, the practices involved with it went back much farther.
Speaker 1: They were largely associated with Oliver Cromwell's conquest of Ireland
Speaker 1: and with the period following the Glorious Revolution in six
Speaker 1: eight the Protestant ascendancy turned former Irish Catholic landowners into
Speaker 1: tenant farmers working for Protestant landlords, many of whom were English,
Speaker 1: and generations later these landlords were not viewed as proper
Speaker 1: really Irish and were instead described as Anglo Irish constance.
Speaker 1: As father had at least a thousand families as tenants,
Speaker 1: although some of his tenants managed huge acreages that they
Speaker 1: subdivided and then least to other tenants, So he had
Speaker 1: these direct tenants and then sort of an indirect pool
Speaker 1: of tenants that some of his tenants were managing. A
Speaker 1: lot of this property was adjoining Lisadel, but some of
Speaker 1: it was in Manchester. To be clear, this entire system
Speaker 1: of Protestant landowners managing land that had previously been owned
Speaker 1: by Irish Catholics directly was exploitive and unjust, and it
Speaker 1: contributed to a lot of problems in Irish history, but
Speaker 1: as landlords went, Henry gore Booth had a reputation for
Speaker 1: being fair and reasonable. Many Protestant landlords were basically absentee landlords,
Speaker 1: but the gore Booth family was in residence at Lisadel
Speaker 1: for at least part of every year. Henry gore Booth
Speaker 1: also charged lower rents than the market value you and
Speaker 1: he ran the whole enterprise in a very organized, thoroughly
Speaker 1: documented way, with orderly, up to date bookkeeping. If this
Speaker 1: seems like a really low bar kind of is, but
Speaker 1: it's also indicative of like how messed up this whole
Speaker 1: system was. That like that was the blar that made
Speaker 1: a person just be seen as a good landlord. He
Speaker 1: also did seem to treat his tenants pretty compassionately, if
Speaker 1: also paternalistically. In the late eighteen seventies, just a couple
Speaker 1: of decades after the Great Famine in Ireland, heavy rains
Speaker 1: crossed widespread crop failures, and for a lot of Irish
Speaker 1: tenants this meant going to a workhouse and losing their
Speaker 1: homes and their land. Many of Henry gore Booth's tenants
Speaker 1: still wound up in workhouses, but he arranged for them
Speaker 1: to go to one that he personally oversaw without having
Speaker 1: to forfeit their lands or their homes to do it.
Speaker 1: So it's still a bad situation, but not as bad
Speaker 1: as it could have been. The rest of the family
Speaker 1: was part of this approach as well. During this same time,
Speaker 1: Lady gore Booths, Constance and the older children set up
Speaker 1: a food distribution system for the tenants, and they arranged
Speaker 1: delivery of straw to homes where there weren't any beds.
Speaker 1: Both Constance and Ava tried to be benevolently helpful, and
Speaker 1: apparently they were genuine enough about it that they really
Speaker 1: endeared themselves to the tenants, who they referred to as
Speaker 1: country people. In eighteen eighty six, when Constance turned eighteen,
Speaker 1: she spent six months in Italy with a governess before
Speaker 1: making her formal debut. She was presented to Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: as a debutante on March seventeenth, eighteen eighty seven, which
Speaker 1: was during the Queen's Golden Jubilee. Year. After her debut,
Speaker 1: Constant spent several seasons in London, where she was always
Speaker 1: described as the life of the party. Although she was popular,
Speaker 1: her behavior wasn't considered very ladylike. While the other young
Speaker 1: women in London tended to be coy and demure, Constance
Speaker 1: was vivacious and direct. Those pranks that she liked to
Speaker 1: play on people could also be kind of mocking and
Speaker 1: mean spirited, which may have turned off some suitors. She
Speaker 1: could also be very daring. One night, she actually jumped
Speaker 1: out of her carriage to physically get in between two
Speaker 1: men who were fighting on the street, calling for other
Speaker 1: passers by to come help her break up the bit.
Speaker 1: In one oft repeated story from this time in Consences Life,
Speaker 1: one night, a male guest at Lisadel was making a
Speaker 1: number of unwanted advances toward her, and then he was
Speaker 1: seated next to her at dinner. While they were eating,
Speaker 1: he put his hand on her knee, and her response
Speaker 1: was to pick it up, hold it up for everyone
Speaker 1: to see, and exclaim, just look what I have found
Speaker 1: in my lap. That's a pretty good story. By the
Speaker 1: time she turned twenty five, tensions were high between Constants
Speaker 1: and her parents. She was basically a spinster at that point,
Speaker 1: and she was seen as an annoyance and a burden
Speaker 1: as they were all increasingly at with each other. At home,
Speaker 1: Constance started asking to go away to art school, and
Speaker 1: she spent more time on art than socializing during her
Speaker 1: eighteen season in London. They finally gave her permission to
Speaker 1: go to the Slade School in London, which we will
Speaker 1: get to. After a quick sponsor break, Constant started studying
Speaker 1: art at the Slade School in London in eighteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: She still spent a lot of time back home in Slago,
Speaker 1: but just being able to have some measure of independence
Speaker 1: helped to ease some of the tension between her and
Speaker 1: her parents. Constance and her sister Ava started socializing with
Speaker 1: lots of artists and writers, including William Butler Yates, who
Speaker 1: had ongoing connections with the gore Booth family and with
Speaker 1: the part of Ireland that they were living in. In
Speaker 1: eight Constance, Ava and their sister Mabel became focused on
Speaker 1: the issue of women's suffrage. Together they started a Votes
Speaker 1: for Women organization in County Sligo, with Constance serving as president,
Speaker 1: Ava as secretary, and Mabel as treasurer. And a speech
Speaker 1: at one of their meetings, Constance posed the question of why,
Speaker 1: if women were so incompetent, had there been no enormous
Speaker 1: uprising against Queen Victoria. She also argued against organizations having
Speaker 1: separate auxiliary units just for women, because doing so set
Speaker 1: up women as a separate class from men. In Constance
Speaker 1: continued her study of art by moving to Paris to
Speaker 1: study at a studio run by Rodolph Julienne. She was
Speaker 1: at this point completely dedicated to this study, even wearing
Speaker 1: a wedding ring to symbolize that she was married to art.
Speaker 1: But not long after arriving in Paris, she met Polish
Speaker 1: playwright and artist Count Kasimir Markovic. Constance and Kasimir were
Speaker 1: immediately taken with each other. He was tall and handsome
Speaker 1: and six years younger than she was. He was also
Speaker 1: a very good painter. He was, being from Poland, very
Speaker 1: unlike most of the people that she had known in
Speaker 1: her life. He was also married, although his wife died
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety nine, just a few weeks after he
Speaker 1: and Constance met. By the time Kasimir's wife died, he
Speaker 1: and Constance were already quite close. They had a passionate
Speaker 1: romance that involved lots of bicycling and at one point
Speaker 1: a duel that Kasimir fought to defend Constance's honor after
Speaker 1: someone insulted her at a costume ball. On September twenty
Speaker 1: nine hundred, they got married. Constance's younger sister, Mabel, who
Speaker 1: had been engaged for years, also got married not long after,
Speaker 1: suggesting that the family was traditional enough to insist that
Speaker 1: the oldest daughter get married before the younger ones. Although
Speaker 1: Kasimir styled himself as a count, it is not completely
Speaker 1: clear whether he actually was one if he did have
Speaker 1: some kind of title, he did not have a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and even though Constance came from quite a
Speaker 1: lot of money, her father had died in January of
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred and virtually the entire estate was settled on
Speaker 1: her brother. So as the newlywed couple divided their time
Speaker 1: among Paris, Lisadel, and the Markovic family estates in Poland,
Speaker 1: they mostly did it with the financial help of the family.
Speaker 1: On November nineteen o one, they had a daughter named Mayev.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o three, the Markovic family moved to a
Speaker 1: home in wrath Guar, which was at the time its
Speaker 1: own village but today is a suburb of Dublin. Constance's
Speaker 1: mother had secured the house for them and was also
Speaker 1: largely raising young mave Stanislaus the count's son by his
Speaker 1: first marriage, moved into the wrath Car home and may
Speaker 1: have visited from time to time. While living in Ireland,
Speaker 1: Constance and Casimir started spending more and more time among
Speaker 1: artistic and literary circles, and they joined an art society
Speaker 1: with William Butler, Yates and George A. E. Russell, and
Speaker 1: Constance became increasingly interested in Irish nationalism. She met maud Gonne,
Speaker 1: who was the founder of the Irish nationalist women's organization
Speaker 1: Daughters of Ireland, and started becoming involved in other nationalist organizations.
Speaker 1: At first, Constance's involvement in Irish nationalism was viewed with suspicion.
Speaker 1: It didn't make a lot of sense that the oldest
Speaker 1: daughter of an ascendancy family would take the side of
Speaker 1: Irish nationalists at all. After all, she was part of
Speaker 1: a minority ruling class that was almost the exact opposite
Speaker 1: of the idea of a free, independent Ireland. Aside from Ava,
Speaker 1: her relatives didn't approve of the connections she was making,
Speaker 1: and those connections suspected she was really a spy. She
Speaker 1: stuck with it, though, even as she and Kasimir started
Speaker 1: to drift apart. When they met They had both had
Speaker 1: a tremendous passion for art and common and now Constance's
Speaker 1: passion was becoming Irish nationalism and fighting for a free Ireland.
Speaker 1: And this was a passion that Kasimir just didn't share.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't necessarily think he would share it. He was
Speaker 1: not Irish. Earlier in their marriage, Constance had styled herself
Speaker 1: as a countess because she had married a count, but
Speaker 1: as they grew apart, she started calling herself madam, which
Speaker 1: was a fashionable thing to do among women in the movement.
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen hundreds, there were several different nationalists
Speaker 1: and separatist organizations operating in Ireland who wanted Ireland to
Speaker 1: be independent from the British Empire. In nineteen o five,
Speaker 1: Arthur Griffith established shin Fayne meaning We Ourselves or Ourselves Alone,
Speaker 1: which absorbed some of these organizations. Constance began attending shin
Speaker 1: Fayne meetings in nineteen o eight, and she joined its
Speaker 1: council in nineteen o nine. Also in nineteen o nine,
Speaker 1: she co founded Nafena Aaron also known as just the Fienna,
Speaker 1: which was an Irish nationalist scouting organization for boys. Part
Speaker 1: of its purpose was paramilitary. They were training boys and
Speaker 1: marksmanship and drill and basically preparing them to join nationalists
Speaker 1: and Republican militia as they got older. A lot of
Speaker 1: these boys were living in extreme poverty and thinking that
Speaker 1: a country life would help them. Constance least a large
Speaker 1: country house and basically operated it as a commune for them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the Fenna was known to pick fights with some
Speaker 1: of the more affluent Anglo Irish boys and more wealthy neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: which was something that Constance tacitly allowed. Throughout all of this,
Speaker 1: Constance also became more serious about feminism, but she didn't
Speaker 1: see this issue as separate from Irish nationalism. From her
Speaker 1: point of view, it would do no good for women
Speaker 1: to have the right to vote if Ireland did not
Speaker 1: have its own parliament to represent them. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: just about having the right to vote because that was
Speaker 1: the right men had. Every person who had the right
Speaker 1: to vote needed to be making an active and positive
Speaker 1: contribution to the society they were living in. So she
Speaker 1: thought Ireland needed to be its own free nation, and
Speaker 1: that a free Ireland also needed to incorporate equal rights
Speaker 1: for women as its core identity. As a nation. She
Speaker 1: also felt that a free Ireland needed to be free
Speaker 1: of the kinds of wealth disparities that she had personally
Speaker 1: benefited from for her whole life. So in reality, Constance's
Speaker 1: political views united feminism, socialism, and Irish nationalism all into
Speaker 1: one package. And in this work Constance gave speeches she
Speaker 1: wrote and edited for a feminist journal. In nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: she demonstrated against a visit of King George the Fifth
Speaker 1: and Queen Mary, avoiding arrest herself but having to bail
Speaker 1: out one of her friends and later testify that she,
Speaker 1: not the man on trial, was the one who had
Speaker 1: burned a flag in protest. This, by the way, did
Speaker 1: not sway the court, and the man in question went
Speaker 1: to prison. In nineteen twelve, Constants and some of her
Speaker 1: friends started serving Irish stew to school children, both to
Speaker 1: feed them because they were living in poverty, and also
Speaker 1: to draw attention to the fact that a law that
Speaker 1: was allowing local authorities to provide school lunches had been
Speaker 1: written not to include Ireland, where a disproportionate number of
Speaker 1: school children were living in poverty. She did similar work
Speaker 1: during the nineteen thirteen Dublin lockout. This was a massive
Speaker 1: labor dispute in which companies responded to growing efforts to
Speaker 1: unionize by locking employees out of their jobs. This dispute
Speaker 1: started at the Dublin United Tramway Company and then spread
Speaker 1: out through other industries. Eventually, about twenty thousand workers in
Speaker 1: Dublin had been locked out of their jobs, and violent
Speaker 1: clashes between workers and police were ongoing. Constance Markovich and
Speaker 1: Delia Larkin, who was the sister of labor organizer James Larkin,
Speaker 1: ran a soup kitchen during this lockout that fed about
Speaker 1: three thousand people a day. By August thirteen, James Larkin
Speaker 1: was a wanted man. He stayed at the Markovitch home
Speaker 1: on August that year here and then the next day
Speaker 1: Constance and some others helps to smuggle him past police
Speaker 1: presence so that he could make a promised public appearance.
Speaker 1: That appearance did not last long, though, 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, and
Speaker 1: no one in Ireland was happy with this situation. Unionists
Speaker 1: who wanted to remain part of Great Britain objected to
Speaker 1: the Government of Ireland Act in general, as did the
Speaker 1: Radical Republicans who wanted Ireland to be independent, and the
Speaker 1: Moderate faction, who were happy for Ireland to be part
Speaker 1: of the UK as long as they had home rule,
Speaker 1: were angry that the Government of Ireland Act had been delayed.
Speaker 1: This conflict, which I mean this had been building for years,
Speaker 1: eventually led to the nineteen sixteen Easter Rising, which was
Speaker 1: an armed uprising against British rule in Ireland. Our previous
Speaker 1: episode has more detail on the rising itself. Constance Markovitch
Speaker 1: joined the Irish Citizen Army and acted as a liaison
Speaker 1: officer during the Easter Rising. She also acted as a
Speaker 1: sniper and when she was finally arrested, she famously kissed
Speaker 1: her pistol before surrendering it. Markovitch was one of many
Speaker 1: women who took part in the Easter Rising, but she
Speaker 1: was the only one who was court mark shold. Afterward,
Speaker 1: she was kept in a cell by herself, and while
Speaker 1: she was awaiting sentence, she and all the other prisoners
Speaker 1: could hear the executions of those who had been sentenced
Speaker 1: to death being carried out every morning. In the end,
Speaker 1: she was found guilty and sentenced to death, but her
Speaker 1: sentence was commuted to life in prison with hard labor
Speaker 1: on account of her gender. When she was given the news,
Speaker 1: she 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 pop Relation. She and the other
Speaker 1: incarcerated women were housed in squalor, only allowed to write
Speaker 1: one letter a month, and fed barely enough to keep
Speaker 1: them alive. While in prison, she converted to Catholicism. Most
Speaker 1: of the surviving participants in the Easter Rising were released
Speaker 1: from prison in the spring of nineteen seventeen. Constance was
Speaker 1: released on June eighteenth of that year. She returned to
Speaker 1: Dublin to a hero's welcome and was formally received into
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church a week later, though she was being
Speaker 1: treated as a celebrity. Markovic picked right up where she
Speaker 1: had left off. She continued to be involved in numerous organizations,
Speaker 1: including being president of kumin Aman, chief scout of the Fiena,
Speaker 1: a major of the Irish Citizen Army, on and on.
Speaker 1: She was also elected to the Shenfean Executive Council and
Speaker 1: soon she and other members were back in prison, partly
Speaker 1: because of anti conscription activities. Again this was during World
Speaker 1: War One, and partly because the British government just didn't
Speaker 1: think it was possible to both fight World War One
Speaker 1: and fight Irish nationalists at the same time, so they
Speaker 1: imprisoned all the movements leaders. This time, though she was
Speaker 1: treated as a political prisoner rather than being in the
Speaker 1: general prison population. A general election was called in the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom immediately after the end of World War One.
Speaker 1: It was held on December fourteenth, nineteen eighteen. Shin Fayn
Speaker 1: ran Constance Markovic as its candidate for the St Patrick
Speaker 1: division of Dublin. She won by a wide margin, defeating
Speaker 1: an incumbent of twenty six years and becoming the first
Speaker 1: woman to be elected as a member of Parliament. She
Speaker 1: was at the time in prison. In spite of half
Speaker 1: of its candidates being incarcerated at the time, seventy three
Speaker 1: members of shin Fain were elected in nineteen eighteen. They
Speaker 1: defeated candidates from the Irish Parliamentary Party in almost all
Speaker 1: of Ireland. This was a huge upset. Those who were free,
Speaker 1: which was a portion of them were not in prison
Speaker 1: at the time, didn't take their their seats in Westminster,
Speaker 1: though in Parliament convened. Instead, they formed the First Doyle,
Speaker 1: which was basically a parliament for the Irish Republic. Amon
Speaker 1: de Valera, who had been a leader in the Easter Rising,
Speaker 1: had been spared execution because he was an American citizen,
Speaker 1: meaning that he wasn't guilty of treason. He was elected
Speaker 1: president of the Doyle and he made Markovic, who is
Speaker 1: still in prison, his Minister of Labor. She was finally
Speaker 1: released from prison in March of nineteen nineteen. She and
Speaker 1: the other She and the other members of the movement
Speaker 1: who were imprisoned were basically released out of the fear
Speaker 1: of the ongoing flu pandemic. Officials were worried that if
Speaker 1: they contracted influenza and died in prison, they would all
Speaker 1: become martyrs. By this point, guerrilla warfare had been underway
Speaker 1: for months and what became known as the Irish War
Speaker 1: of Independence or the Anglo Irish War. As Minister of
Speaker 1: Labor cons since kept strict security procedures, instituted a labor
Speaker 1: court to resolve disputes, and basically tried to mediate between
Speaker 1: Shinfane and the Labor Party. Her Department of Labor worked
Speaker 1: out of a building that claimed to be an apartment
Speaker 1: leasing office and also contained several pianos, so people working
Speaker 1: there could pretend to be giving piano lessons if there
Speaker 1: was a police raid, does make it super clear what
Speaker 1: was going on. Uh. Rather than joining the rest of
Speaker 1: the members of Parliament and the regular British Parliament, they
Speaker 1: had founded their own parliament, which they were having to
Speaker 1: operate in secret because it wasn't actually legal for them
Speaker 1: to be doing it, and at some points various members
Speaker 1: of that parliament were doing so from prison. I find
Speaker 1: this whole thing fascinating. So Conserence was arrested again in
Speaker 1: October of nineteen nineteen. During all of this, by that point,
Speaker 1: the Doyle and most of the organizations that she was
Speaker 1: involved with had all been outlawed after her. At least,
Speaker 1: she managed to run the Department of Labor while in
Speaker 1: hiding for several months before being arrested once again in
Speaker 1: September of nineteen twenty when the car that she was
Speaker 1: riding in was pulled over by police. This time, while
Speaker 1: in prison, she learned to speak Irish. This is that
Speaker 1: moment I've had several but it's that moment when I
Speaker 1: was looking over this earlier where I'm like, she was
Speaker 1: born a rich, spoiled girl. Yes, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: that a little bit more at the end. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just it's one of those times where you particularly these
Speaker 1: 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 British Auxiliary Division police killing at least
Speaker 1: thirteen spectators during a Gaelic football match. On December twenty nine,
Speaker 1: Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Acts that attempted to
Speaker 1: partition Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, with two
Speaker 1: 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 formally 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 walkout of like this. The
Speaker 1: treaty was ultimately passed on the Irish side by a
Speaker 1: kind of narrow majority, and there was a mass walkout
Speaker 1: of the people who didn't agree with it after it
Speaker 1: had been signed. Markovitch left Ireland for a time after
Speaker 1: the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty. She traveled both
Speaker 1: to Paris and then to the United States, and there
Speaker 1: she went on a lecture tour to support total Irish independence.
Speaker 1: When she got home, she found that Ireland once again
Speaker 1: was being struck by violence, now in the Irish Civil War,
Speaker 1: which was between Irish Republicans and Irish nationalists. These are
Speaker 1: people that had previously been mostly on the same side,
Speaker 1: now against one another. Markovitch, who was now fifty four,
Speaker 1: joined the nationalist cause once again, taking up arms as
Speaker 1: a sniper. In ninety three, she was arrested and imprisoned again.
Speaker 1: Many of the Irish nationalists imprisoned at the time had
Speaker 1: started a hunger strike, which Markovitch joined as soon as
Speaker 1: she was incarcerated. She fasted for three days, at which
Speaker 1: point the strike was called off because of the death
Speaker 1: of one of the participants. She was released from her
Speaker 1: final incarceration on Christmas Eve nine. Out of prison, Constance
Speaker 1: Markovitch was really disappointed in what Ireland had become. She
Speaker 1: had envisioned a free Ireland that would be a radical
Speaker 1: workers democracy, and instead they add this Irish free state
Speaker 1: that was still part of the British Empire, even to
Speaker 1: the point of having to have an oath of allegiance
Speaker 1: to the Crown if you were going to be a
Speaker 1: member of its parliament. She was also disappointed that a
Speaker 1: lot of the social hierarchies were in place now as
Speaker 1: had been before. She started turning her attention to local
Speaker 1: politics and service, including working with the Wrath Minds Urban
Speaker 1: Council to build wash houses and public baths to serve
Speaker 1: the four hundred thousand residents who did not have running
Speaker 1: water in their homes. In ninety six, she joined Phiena Foil,
Speaker 1: the newly established Irish Republican Party, which had split off
Speaker 1: from shin Fain. She continued to be politically active for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life. She died in Dublin on
Speaker 1: July fifteenth, nine seven, not long after she had had
Speaker 1: an appendectomy. Casimir and Stanislaus were both with her when
Speaker 1: she died, although at that point she was estranged from
Speaker 1: her daughter Mayeve. Her sister Ava died the year before,
Speaker 1: having spent most of her life dedicated to social and
Speaker 1: political issues, working with her lifelong partner Esther Roper, who
Speaker 1: she had been with since eighteen ninety six. Constance's funeral
Speaker 1: was attended by thousands of people, with a procession that
Speaker 1: took hours to pass. After her death and really before. Frankly,
Speaker 1: people had a lot of disparaiting comments to make about
Speaker 1: Constance Markovitch. Playwright Sean O'Casey, who was in the Irish
Speaker 1: Citizen Army with her, called her a quote Catherine Wheel
Speaker 1: of irresponsibility. Judge William Evelyn Wiley, who was present at
Speaker 1: her court martial, later on wrote of it, saying that
Speaker 1: she had curled up completely and cried a lot and
Speaker 1: said things like I'm only a woman and you cannot
Speaker 1: shoot a woman, basically moaning the whole time. Official court
Speaker 1: records say the opposite. They say that she actually stood
Speaker 1: up to the court. In her account, she said in
Speaker 1: court that she had fought for Ireland's independence during Easter
Speaker 1: Week and was as ready to die for it now
Speaker 1: as she had been then. Her correspondence during her incarcerations,
Speaker 1: which were I mean this correspondence was consistently steadfast and
Speaker 1: resolute and sometimes even optimistic, also suggests that like a
Speaker 1: teary breakdown and a bunch of moaning in court would
Speaker 1: have been completely out of character for her. Basically, in
Speaker 1: the years after her she was criticized as being a
Speaker 1: rich dilettante who was just doing all of this work
Speaker 1: for attention. There are, of course, some very legitimate conversations
Speaker 1: to be had about her work, like whether it is
Speaker 1: right to arm young boys and indoctrinate them as a
Speaker 1: separatist paramilitary unit, or whether her unyielding insistence on total
Speaker 1: independence for Ireland was ultimately divisive. I was not what
Speaker 1: a lot of the criticism was about, though it was about, uh,
Speaker 1: but what she wore, that she had in my nice
Speaker 1: uniform made for herself, that she had a portrait made
Speaker 1: of herself with her gun. Like. People made a big
Speaker 1: deal out of things that she was wearing and the
Speaker 1: way that she talked, and the fact that she had
Speaker 1: come from rich affluence. Uh. And the whole only doing
Speaker 1: it for attention claim, I think is one that you
Speaker 1: mainly hear about women and children. Uh, and also doesn't
Speaker 1: really jive with having gone to prison repeatedly and been
Speaker 1: on hunger strikes and done hard labor. Like none of
Speaker 1: that really adds up to, oh, just doing it for attention,
Speaker 1: which is gendered and dismissive comments make in the first place. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of the criticisms along those lines have softened in
Speaker 1: the decades since her death, and a portrait of her
Speaker 1: was presented to the Speaker of the House of Commons
Speaker 1: on February. At least it was announced that was going
Speaker 1: to happen. I did not find an article saying that, yes,
Speaker 1: it actually did. Um. It was part The presentation of
Speaker 1: that portrait was part of the year long celebration of
Speaker 1: the Representation of the People Act of nineteen eighteen, which
Speaker 1: became law on February sixth of that year and gave
Speaker 1: um all men over twenty one and all women property
Speaker 1: owners over the edge of thirty the right to vote.
Speaker 1: So it was part of a suffrage celebration. Do you
Speaker 1: have a listener mail for us? I knew I have
Speaker 1: listener mail that came from a parcel because I had
Speaker 1: the uh, the opportunity to be the one opening the
Speaker 1: mail recently, which doesn't happen all that often. It's from Angela,
Speaker 1: and it's a long letter, so I'm not going to
Speaker 1: read all of it. But Angela starts by saying, first
Speaker 1: of all, thank you so much for all the work
Speaker 1: you do. I have so much fun listening to all
Speaker 1: the gems of information that you share with us on
Speaker 1: the podcast. I feel like a long time listener, even
Speaker 1: though I've only been listening for about six months. And
Speaker 1: then she goes on to talk about where she works
Speaker 1: and why she sent us delicious grandola. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the delicious grandola. Fortunately I was able to get the
Speaker 1: granola through airport security. Uh, there was a granola bag search.
Speaker 1: Angela goes on to say that she has been listening
Speaker 1: to all of the podcasts in order, which is a
Speaker 1: feat and I salute you. She's currently at the end
Speaker 1: of and she sent a few thoughts about the prior
Speaker 1: episodes on Cokia and on the Ghost Army, and then
Speaker 1: went on to say, I would also like to take
Speaker 1: a moment to thank you for the episodes on Frankie
Speaker 1: Manning and the Lyndy Hoppers. I've been part of a
Speaker 1: ballroom dance world for the last six or seven years,
Speaker 1: so hearing about the history of dances in that sphere
Speaker 1: was amazing. You would think that after spending that much
Speaker 1: time enjoying East Coast swing with various other styles of dance,
Speaker 1: that I would have at least learned about the origins
Speaker 1: of swing being an African American culture, But no, I
Speaker 1: feel ashamed to admit that until that point I had
Speaker 1: always associated big band music and swing dance with Fred
Speaker 1: Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Thank you for enlightening me to
Speaker 1: something that I not only missed in history class, but
Speaker 1: in dance class as well. She talks a bit more
Speaker 1: and concludes, thank you again for all the hard work
Speaker 1: you put introducing the podcast. You really make history come
Speaker 1: alive in such an enjoyable way. The broad spectrum of
Speaker 1: subjects you cover our mind blowing and I love it.
Speaker 1: In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I found out
Speaker 1: that my grandfather is a great grand student of Franz
Speaker 1: List and the only reason I knew that was because
Speaker 1: of your show. This letter ended up being longer than
Speaker 1: I intended, but I just love you, ladies and everything
Speaker 1: you do. Keep it up, cheers, Angela. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Angela uh for this I um. I admire the fortitude
Speaker 1: of people who were listening to the entire show all
Speaker 1: the way through the archive, and I also loved it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it gives us a chance to revisit old episodes
Speaker 1: in listener mail. And also thank you again for the granola. Uh.
Speaker 1: I love granola. If you would like to write to
Speaker 1: us about this or any other podcast where History podcasts
Speaker 1: at how staff works dot com. Our social media is
Speaker 1: also missed in history, and that is at Facebook and
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Speaker 1: website which is missed in history dot com and you
Speaker 1: will find a searchable archive of every episode we have
Speaker 1: ever done, and show notes for all the oppisodes that
Speaker 1: Holly and I have ever done, and you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to our show on Apple podcasts, Google Play, and wherever
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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com