Constance Markiewicz

Constance Markievicz was educated privately and born in London, perhaps being one of the most intellectual of the Rebels and being one of the most revered women in Irish history. She married Count Casimir Markievicz, a Polish nobleman and joined Sinn Fein in 1900 but grew weary of Arthur Griffiths pacifism. She launched Fianna Eireann in 1909. She became an officer in the Citizen's army, prompting the resignation of the Socialist playwright Sean O Casy. She was a prominent rebel in the Easter Rising but her death sentance was commutted on account of her sex. She became President of Cumann na mBan in 1917 and converted to Catholicism. She was elected Sinn Fein MP for St Patrick’s Dublin, 1918, thereby being the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons, but did not take her seat due to the Sinn Fein policy of abstention. She became Minister for Labour in the Cabinet of the first Dail Eireann while imprisoned between 1919-21 and became Minister for Labor in the second Dail. She denounced the Treaty as a capitalist ploy and thus supported the republicans in the civil war, 1923-4. She then became Sinn Fein abstentionist TD for South Dublin, 1923-7.