Constance Markievicz

Constance Georgine Markievicz (Polish: Markiewicz [marˈkʲɛvitʂ]; née Gore-Booth; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), also known as Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish republican politician, suffragist, socialist and labour activist who was the first woman elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Born into the Anglo-Irish ruling-class, Markievicz abandoned her social position in favour of Irish independence and social reform. A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic. She was sentenced to death but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of her sex. On 28 December 1918, at the 1918 general election (while in Holloway Prison), she became the first woman elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom; in accordance with the abstentionist policy of the Sinn Féin manifesto, she did not take her seat on her release, serving as a TD in the revolutionary Dáil Éireann. She served as a TD for Dublin St Patrick's from 1918 to 1921, and for Dublin South from 1921 to 1922. She served as Minister for Labour in the Ministry of Dáil Éireann from 1919 to 1922, becoming the second female cabinet minister in Europe. She served again as a TD for Dublin South constituency 1923 until her death in 1927. Markievicz opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and supported the Anti-Treaty forces in the Irish Civil War. She left Sinn Féin in 1926 to become a founding member of Fianna Fáil.