She was a snob, fraud, show-off, and murderer

CONSTANCE MARKIEVICZ: A bloodthirsty show-off who got a kick out of wearing uniforms

Nicola Tallant

October 29 2006 12:11 AM

IRELAND'S most famous feminist, Countess Constance Markievicz, has been branded a bloodthirsty show-off who brainwashed children into believing they must die for Ireland.

Historian and Sunday Independent columnist Ruth Dudley Edwards has described Markievicz, the first woman elected to the House of Commons, as a self-indulgent prima donna who craved the limelight and adopted causes she barelyunderstood.

In a radio documentary to be aired next week, Ruth Dudley Edwards argues that Countess Markievicz was driven in to politics because she longed for excitement and was mesmerised by charismatic men.

The author says that although the lady known as 'Madame' in the Dail has a long list of credits to her name - most of them she bestowed on herself.

In Speaking Ill of the Dead , Dudley-Edwards says that when a statue was unveiled to the Countess in Sligo two years ago, it commemorated a woman whose example should be followed by those involved in the peace process. The reality, she says, is that the Countess killed without pity, got a kick out of wearing uniforms and would never have had abandoned the 'armed struggle'.

"There is absolutely nothing peaceable about her. She was staunch, self-indulgent and a bloodythirsty show-off who brainwashed children into believing that they must die for Ireland . . . she continued to murder after 1922 during the Civil War."

It marks the second blow to the memory of the Countess in the past six months. Earlier this year new evidence emerged that instead of bravely facing a British Court after the 1916 Rising, she broke down in tears and begged for her life.

New documents uncovered in memoirs written by prosecutor William Wiley, claimed that the Countess actually cited her gender when begging for her life after her execution was ordered.

"She did give up a life of material comfort when she embraced the revolution," admits Dudley Edwards. "But she was a snob with a bogus title. She was physically brave to the point of recklessness but she lacked the moral courage to admit her failure of nerve when she was faced with the prospect of execution.

"She was beautiful and flamboyant but she was all style and no substance along with other uncompromising green harpies of her generation."

The historian says that Markievicz, who got her name from Ukrainian widower Casimir Markievicz, who she married aged 30, always knew she should never have had a title of 'Countess' but continued to use it anyway.

"She didn't want to incur disapproval from her family so she said he was a nobleman. She had no right to the title of Countess. A recent biography says she had a disregard for titles but she was an attention seeker and was always known as Countess or Madame," she says.

Dudley Edwards says that Countess Markievicz sent her daughter Maeve to Sligo permanently when she was just eight years old because she got in the way of her social life in Dublin.

She also claims that Markievicz had a fetish for wearing uniforms and carefully posed in one before 1916 in a photographers studio so it would be her epitaph if she died during the Rising.

"It is no surprise that after that men did everything they could to keep women out of politics. Can you blame them? They turned off men for generations. We are all lucky that in due course some women came along and showed that they could be ordinary and not mad to get involved in politics.

"Markievicz was a snob and a fraud and an exhibitionist and a murderer. She neglected her own child and betrayed others by urging their children to die for Ireland. She was certainly a beauty but boy, she was terrible."

'Speaking Ill of the Dead' is broadcast on RTE Radio 1 on Monday nights at 8.02pm.