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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