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A NEW CAMPAIGN is calling for the erection of permanent plaques in Dublin and London to commemorate the work of Countess Constance Markievicz.
The group is appealing for Dublin City Council and the Greater London Authority to fund blue plaques to honour the first Irish female cabinet minister, who was also the first woman to be elected to the British parliament.
Irish director and producer Siobhan Cleary, who began the online petition, said the campaign is working to reverse the exclusion of Irish women from popular history.
[Markievicz] hasn’t gotten the credit she deserves. The Free State even refused to give her a State funeral. It was the poor of Dublin that buried her in the end.
Cleary added that the two plaques would ideally be located outside Leinster House in Dublin and at Buckingham Gate in London, where Markievicz was born in 1868.
The petition has so far been signed by over 100 individuals, with supporters of the campaign saying that Markievicz should be given greater recognition for her role in the 1916 Easter Rising, as well as her electoral achievements.
Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha, who chairs the Dublin City Council commemorative naming committee, told TheJournal.ie that he would be open to backing an application to erect a plaque in her honour.
I would certainly support the idea of an appropriate plaque for Countess Markievicz, an outstanding republican, feminist and socialist… There are many memorials and plaques already in place around the city so we need to see how we can complement and enhance that.
Markievicz served over a year in jail for taking part in the Rising. She was Minister for Labour from 1919 to 1922, before leaving government in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
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Is there not a bust of Constance Markieviez in Stephens Green?
Therr is a statute of her opp the pearse street fire station
I thought it was Ballyfermot that Constant Markieviez bravely gave his life for Ireland?
Yes it’s outside the Markievicz centre on Townsend St up the road from Markievicz house. after the 1916 rising Markievicz was spared execution because she was a woman. Michael Mallin, the other commander in RCSI was executed. Positive discrimination in action!
Obviously, fewer people than I thought have seen property developer and gob$hite of the highest order Tom D’Arcy embarrassing himself on television with that particular number… Of “Land League” fame of late.
More a romantic hero than an actual one – do some research, she wasn’t the leading light history would have us believe!
Nor was she a Countess
@Larry L’Oiseau considering in 1900 she married Count Casimir Dunin Markievicz I think that makes her a countess.
True, but HE wasn’t even a real Count, think he bought his title!
This is true @Michael although it is not suspected he ‘bought it’ in the way ‘Dr’ Ian Paisley bought his.
I would suggest @Derv you read up a bit more on his history and not just start and end with Wikipedia
The New Land League will be all over this. Splitters!
He died for your bog standard house, so he did!!
Why would the state give a state funeral to someone who had just fought a war against it?
Ah don’t be letting facts get in the way of a good story !!
You are forgetting her role in Rising against the Brits
No I didn’t
Given the context of the time she definitely deserves a plaque at the very least.
This article adds a little more info:
https://yourhistoryteacher.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/countess-markievicz-the-feminist-inspiration-youve-never-heard-of/
Terrible Beauty: A Life of Constance Markievicz, 1868–1927 by Anne Haverty is well with a read for those who want to inform themselves and have any interest in Irish history of the early 20th century.
There’s a statue of her outside Tara street baths ?
fyi
there is a bust of Markievicz at tours entrance to Leinster House and large painting on way to Seanad chamber
Look up the real story on the “Countess”. She has already too much undeserved acclamation.
So what are the actual fact about her involvement in the violent outbreak that led to such bloodshed in Ireland for so many subsequent years? The unvarnished facts is what I want.
Sligos GAA pitch is named after her as well. Tis pretty big – about the size of a GAA pitch with one stand a some terracing and a wall. Bigger than a plaque for sure
Don’t see my comment , as I said Constance de Markievicz was not born in Sligo Ireland but in fact in Buckingham Gate UK . Our school books have always stated she was born in Ireland.
One spoilt rich daddy’s girl mad cow.
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