Countess Constance Markievicz

Artist Boleslaw von Szankowski (b. 1873 - d. 1953)

Date1901

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions200.7 x 85.1 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by Count Markievicz and son, 1932. © The Estate of Boleslaw von Szankowski.

Object number688

DescriptionCountess Markievicz (née Gore-Booth) helped organise food and relief for strikers at Liberty Hall during the Lockout. Her decision to join the Irish Citizen Army, in which she served as lieutenant during the Easter Rising would catapult her into national politics, becoming the first woman MP and cabinet minister in Europe when she was made Minister for Labour in the first Dáil. Her husband Count Casimir Joseph Dunin de Markievicz was a member of the Polish gentry rather than a ‘Count.’ Like his wife Constance his interests were wide ranging and he spent much of 1913 as a war correspondent in the Balkans. However, he helped disguise Larkin in order to evade the police on the morning of 31 August 1913, a day which would be dubbed ‘Bloody Sunday.’

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