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Countess Markievicz National Library of Ireland

From the archives: A Christmas card from Countess Markievicz in Holloway Prison

In our final piece marking the centenary of the women’s vote in 1918, we take a look at items in the archive related to Countess Markievicz.

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IN THE NATIONAL Library of Ireland archives, there are letters written by Countess Markievicz, which give an insight into her time in prison.

On a visit to the NLI, we got a look at some of the letters, and a Christmas card which Markievicz and Kathleen Clarke – widow of Tom Clarke, who signed the proclamation – sent in 1918.

“This collection of letters from Countess Markievicz tell you quite a bit about her because they’re all written from different prisons over a period of a number of years,” explained outreach officer at the NLI Katherine McSharry.

 

Markievicz was a suffragette, feminist, and the first female MP – there’s going to be a portrait of her hanging in the House of Commons soon.

“She was heavily involved in the 1916 Rising, she was very much involved in the fight for the vote for women, revolutionary politics,” explained McSharry.  “And in 1918, which is a really dramatic year in Ireland – the war is still going on, there’s a big push against conscription in Ireland – she was one of the people who is rounded up and imprisoned because there is this idea that she is involved in what’s called the German plot. So, a plot by Germany to overthrow British rule in Ireland.”

Among the letters belonging to Markievicz in the NLI archives are ones sent while she was in prison in 1918, during a period when her status would change hugely.

“In the letters that we see here, Countess Markievicz is in prison, she’s in Holloway Prison and she’s been imprisoned because she’s thought to be too dangerous to have on the loose in Ireland, that she’s involved in revolutionary politics,” said McSharry. Due to the fears around the German plot – which was mentioned by Dublin Castle – a number of very high-profile, very prominent republicans are in prison.

At this time, Countess Markievicz is in prison with Kathleen Clarke, who’s the widow of Tom Clarke (one of the signatories of the Proclamation).

“And one of the fascinating things is, she’s writing these letters to her own sister and while she is in prison, we have one here in December 1918, she becomes the first woman to be elected to the British parliament – she never takes her seat – and she does that while she’s in prison. She’s elected in Dublin while she’s in prison in the UK,” said McSharry.

In this 1918 December letter we have her talking about how she got paper which is a big thing in prison, to write an election address, and she was doing it so fast she wasn’t sure if it made sense. But it must have made a certain amount of sense because when we flip over and we see her signature, what she says here, she signs herself Constance Markievicz, IRA. And then in January, she signs herself Constance Markievicz, MP. So she’s become a member of parliament in this time.

Within the detailed letters and diaries that people keep at this time. are not just details of their involvement in political affairs, but “you also find out the books that they’re reading and who they’re interested in and there’s always little bits of gossip”, said McSharry.

Christmas Card0

Another item she showed us was a Christmas card that is sent by Countess Markievicz and by Kathleen Clarke from prison in Holloway. “They’re sending a Christmas card from Holloway jail to a friend of theirs, William O’Brien, who was really involved in the Trade Union movement.

“And you can see across the top here, it says greetings to you and to the Irish transport Workers Union, the ITWU.”

The card is signed “Holloway Jail, December 1918″, which showed how “they’re still keeping up the customs and rituals that help to make ordinary life possible”.

They underline in the card a line that says ‘Fond memory brings the light of other days around me’.

So they’re communicating with and keeping that connection with their friends in Ireland.

Underneath that line, it reads: “May peace and freedom gladden your days.”

Also in the archives is a flyer urging people to vote for Countess Markievicz in the December 1918 election. Interestingly, it focuses on her religious side.

“When we look at this flyer, it’s very interesting in the context of Countess Markievicz, who is very radical in her politics, very revolutionary. What’s being pointed to here is her spiritual and aher religious side,” explained McSharry.

So what they’re showing us is an extract from an Irish priest, that’s how he’s described, talking about how religious she was when she was in Kilmainham Jail, awaiting trial after the 1916 Rising. So it’s doing a few interesting things.
It’s reminding us she was a key revolutionary figure, but it’s also showing us that she has this spiritual religious side and for a big portion of the electorate that’s a really important factor.
So there’s this targeted focus on a particular aspect of the candidate, in order to bring out as many people as possible.

This type of electioneering is to allay fears that people may have about somebody, said McSharry, or to make a very particular appeal.

“There was a very particular appeal to religion and sacrifice and those really important elements in the memory of 1916, so what they’re doing is pressing that particular button which is to remember the religious sacrifice that the men had made, that she was ready to make, that she was prepared to make it.”

Read: This Waterford woman’s diary shows us what life was like in Ireland 100 years ago>

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    Mute In the paper
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    Feb 9th 2018, 8:49 AM

    An Absolute..great woman

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:42 AM

    @In the paper: Certainly a woman of contradictions given that she claims to be a suffragette. If she stood for womans rights to vote then she should not have abstained from taking her seat at Westminster. In December 1918 presumably before the GE took place she writes to her sister Eva Gore-Booth signing herself as a member of the IRA. Then in January (after the election) she signs herself as an MP without having any intention of fulfilling her duties as an MP. We do not know if she also wrote to her children while being locked up. Constance Markievicz abandoned her Protestant faith to become a Republican martyr.

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    Mute Teresa Ryan
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:02 PM

    @Chris Kirk:

    What a load of shyte. There were and are plenty of Protestant republicans.

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:05 PM

    @Teresa Ryan: I don’t think Chris knows what the Orange stands for in our Country’s flag.

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    Mute Tom Purcell
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:38 PM

    @Chris Kirk: Her faith had nothing to do with what her political beliefs should be, and she was not the only Protestant to stand, a few names come to mind; Wolftone, Lord Edward FItzgerald, Robert Emmet, Bagenal Harvey, C S Parnell, Thomas Davis, SAM MAGUIRE, President Childers, President Hyde etc.

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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Feb 9th 2018, 4:10 PM

    @In the paper: I pass by her former home on leinster rd rathmines. a house of great history. with not even a plaque to mark it. a shame to such a great woman.

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    Mute Anthony newey
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    Feb 9th 2018, 5:23 PM

    @Tom Purcell: Douglas Hyde was also the founder of the Gaelic League.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 9th 2018, 8:50 PM

    @Chris Kirk: I don’t know why people convert to Catholicism but I don’t see that it’s anyone’s business but their own. The world is full of Republics, but it isn’t a religion. Also, she and her husband had one child. Why on earth wouldn’t she have written to her, despite the shortage of paper in prison? If that’s a State matter, I suggest you write to the National Museum to check what family members she wrote to.

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    Mute Adam Reid
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:16 AM

    Countess Markievicz actually broke down in tears and begged for her life after her execution was ordered citing the fact that she was only a woman. Feminist – some joke.

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    Mute Jimmy Roughneen
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:20 AM

    @Adam Reid: what an absolute tool you are. Would you be willing to die for your beliefs? Or would you beg too?

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    Mute Honeybadger197
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:50 AM

    @Jimmy Roughneen: Would you be willing to kill for your beliefs?, is worth asking too.

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    Mute Anthony newey
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:20 AM

    @Adam Reid: nonsense.She objected to being reprieved on account of her sex and on being told said to her captors “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me ” .Sean O’Casey said of her “One thing she had ,physical courage.With that she was clothed as with a garment”.If you have something which contradicts the accepted history perhaps you could please quote your source ?

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    Mute David Conroy
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:28 AM

    @Honeybadger197: Another question would be, Are you willing to murder an unarmed policeman doing his job for your beliefs ?

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    Mute Hardly Normal
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:35 AM

    @David Conroy: beliefs or a sense of right to freedom?

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    Mute Anthony newey
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:39 AM

    @Anthony newey: just checked the O’Casey quote which was from memory.He actually said “physical courage in abundance”.

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    Mute Jimmy Roughneen
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:40 AM

    @Honeybadger197: no I would not. Personnel beliefs are not worth dying for. I could change my beliefs based on new evidence.

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    Mute Teresa Ryan
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:04 PM

    @Adam Reid:

    British army propaganda without a grain of truth. I suppose an excuse was needed why they bottled out of executing her

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    Mute David Conroy
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:22 PM

    @Hardly Normal: Same difference, killing an unarmed policeman did not deter her and his freedom never crossed her mind either. The more I read in to this woman’s history the more I see another side to her. Her title Markievicz cannot be traced (on her husbands side) to Poland or Russia, it just does not add up !

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    Mute Jennifer Mann
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    Feb 9th 2018, 5:15 PM

    @Adam Reid: You’re a lying pathetic moron.

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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:55 AM

    She got one over the RIC for the way they treated strikers during the 1913 lockouts dublin. nice one.

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    Mute Tommy Whelan
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:52 PM

    @Sean Conway: the RIC was a Irish police force made up of Irish men . He was a just police officer doing a days work . Over 500 of them where murder by republicans . Sometimes in front of their own families .

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    Mute Sean Conway
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    Feb 9th 2018, 4:13 PM

    @Tommy Whelan: Most of them were drunken louts.

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    Mute John Walsh
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:07 AM

    Constance Markievicz gave up his life to enable us to eradicate suppression, taxation, eviction, criminality… Never forget

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    Mute siobhan pat mulcahy
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:34 AM

    @John Walsh: and it didnt work. Look at lreland today.

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    Mute Ashley Brown
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:15 AM

    @John Walsh: And what have you got now? Double taxation, evictions, homelessness, criminality deluxe with drug Lords running riot and planting pipe bombs and shooting each other. I could go on but I’ll let it be. You have suffered enough.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:28 AM

    @John Walsh: And when she died, of appendicitis, she gave all her money to the poor. Best Minister for Labour ever.

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:48 AM

    @John Walsh: Never forget that she also abandoned her children and denyed her faith in the Church of Ireland to become a martyr.

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    Mute Aideen Stanley
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:19 AM

    Countess Markievicz was no armchair commentator. Agree with her or not, she was committed to her beliefs and got busy living. She underlined on her Christmas Card a meaningful phrase from Oft in the Stilly Night.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:30 AM

    @Aideen Stanley: Exactly, it was a reference to the Thomas Moore song: “When I remember all
    The friends, so link’d together,
    I’ve seen around me fall
    Like leaves in wintry weather;
    I feel like one,
    Who treads alone…”

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:07 AM

    FG and FF would have considered her a terrorist if she had led her campaign in the 1970′s. Funny old world.

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    Mute John003
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:22 AM

    Not sure she would have approved of the Enniskillen bomb or some of the killing which was sectarian by the IRA….She did believe in democracy and in the 1970′s most nationalists in NI voted for the SDLP who supported the Sunningdale agreement….Opposed by the IRA and the DUP…

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    Mute Honeybadger197
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:53 AM

    @Cal Mooney: She joined FF when it formed.

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:55 AM

    @John003: Are u saying FF and FG would not have considered her a terrorist. She did take part in an uprising against the state. The IRA also partook in sectarian killings in 1919. So I am not sure what your point is in relation to sectarianism.

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:03 AM

    @Honeybadger197: she joined it when it was a republican party. Now it’s just a vessel through which brown envelopes buy whatever the elite want passed as law.

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    Mute John003
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:10 AM

    @Cal Mooney: Yes true IRA did some sectarian killing in war of independence….Difference is they had a mandate from 1918 election which SF won under DeValera…In 1970′s SDLP won every election and had the mandate….She never trusted DeValera however….

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:18 AM

    @John003: John .. SF did mot run candidates in 1970, so the SDLP were unopposed for the Nationalist vote. The SDLP also swear allegiance to the Queen. SF will not swear allegiance to the British state. That is why SF have the vast majority of the Nationalist vote today. It was also the same reason SF did so well in the 1918 elections. They too refused to swear allegiance to the crown.

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    Mute David Conroy
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    Feb 9th 2018, 10:32 AM

    @Honeybadger197: I think she joined every organization in the state as well !

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Feb 9th 2018, 12:08 PM

    @Cal Mooney: That isn’t exactly true as Sinn Fein were led by Arthur Griffith/Michael Collins at the signing of the Anglo Irish agreement and were not arguing about the crown. They wanted the (Free State) freedom from British government rule. It was Dev who wanted an end to the Crown in Ireland, which kicked off the civil war.

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:03 PM

    @Chris Kirk: You seem to forget that Michael Collins immediately and covertly started shipping weapons to Republicans in the North after the British handed back control of the South. He understood that the Irish in the North needed to defend themselves. It is not written into too many school books (Again FF/FG/Labour dont want to tell the truth about Collins supporting Guerilla war-fare in the North), but all good history books have it well documented. You and everyone should google the truth about Collins.

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    Mute Niccolo Saccho
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:37 AM

    Jeez, it’s only February, the Christmas articles are starting early this year.

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:55 AM

    markievicz spoke about civil rights but didn’t stand by them when elected as an MP. Little wonder modern day Sinn Fein in the north abstain from taking their seats at Westminster, while falsely claiming that they represented the civil rights movement during the troubles. Bernadette Devlin was a civil rights activist and an elected MP who stood by her civil rights beliefs at Westminster, so why didn’t Markievicz do the same.

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    Mute Cal Mooney
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    Feb 9th 2018, 12:03 PM

    @Chris Kirk: Chris, that sounds like something a member of the Labour party would say to justify every wrong doing they imposed on the most vulnerable of Irish society. Thankfully the Countess and others didn’t take the approach you advocate, otherwise we would all be singing ‘God save the Queen today at all GAA grounds.

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Feb 9th 2018, 12:11 PM

    @Cal Mooney: Rubbish you know absolutly nothing about Markievicz, go read up on it for feck sake.

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    Mute DaisyChainsaw
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    Feb 9th 2018, 12:45 PM

    @Chris Kirk: You’re no expert either! She had 1 daughter who was in her late teens when Markievicz was imprisoned. Do you think male soldiers abandoned their families to fight too?

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    Mute Teresa Ryan
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    Feb 9th 2018, 1:09 PM

    @Chris Kirk:

    Because SF were elected on a mandate of Irish independence so they set about gaining that independence.

    If by 1918, Irish people wanted home rule they would have voted for the Irish Parliamentary party. The didn’t and flocked to SF.

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:23 AM

    Maybe she was trying to atone for the appalling treatment that her family had dished out to their impoverished and destitute tennants during the preceding century!

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Feb 9th 2018, 12:17 PM

    @John Mc Donagh: Do you have any evidence for that statement or are you just trying to say that the Gore-Booths were cruel landlords. Have you ever been to Lissadell House to see where they lived. Do you know anything about her children she abandoned to let her parents look after.

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Feb 9th 2018, 2:42 PM

    @Chris Kirk: I suggest that you read about the clearance of Balligilligan and yes I really DO know all about the Gore-Booths,treatment of their tenants, they were my ancestors landlords. The memories of their Co Sligo tenants are not very uplifting.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 9th 2018, 9:32 PM

    @Chris Kirk: Chris, please stop posting nonsense about her abandoned children. They had one daughter, who was at boarding school in England.

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    Mute Rob_Kennedy
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:53 PM

    @John Mc Donagh: The rents Sir Henry GB charged were between twelve and fifteen shillings an acre compared to 40 shillings charged by the neighbouring estate. Plus free seaweed, an enormous advantage as it was valuable fertiliser.

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Feb 10th 2018, 12:02 AM

    @Rob_Kennedy: Yeah, and he cleared the townland of Balligiligan because his wife didn’t like the smell of turf fires —–One of the original Greens I suppose! and your post is just absolute nonsense, he evicted more tenants than any of his contemporaries!!

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    Mute Rob_Kennedy
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    Feb 9th 2018, 11:59 PM

    Sir Henry Gore Booth charged half the rent his fellow estate owners did. Constance didn’t get her charitable instincts off a sore knee. She saw the kindness of her parents to their tenants.

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