Madam, – As a Markievicz biographer I take great exception to the snide comments made about Constance Markievicz by your columnist Sarah Carey (“Barbed wire at Lissadell”, Opinion, January 13th). Contrary to the “bloodthirsty hysteric” label given to her by Ms Carey, “Madame”, as Constance was affectionately known by the poor of Dublin, lived a life of exemplary service to Ireland and to its people.
Regarding the “bloodthirsty” label it is well known that during the Easter Rebellion she bent every effort to save life when she could. Following the surrender a British soldier entered the College of Surgeons unaware that the garrison there had not yet surrendered. One of Con’s men lifted his revolver to shoot him but Constance, preventing him said, “Don’t Joe. It would be a great shame now”. Her work with the strikers during the 1913 Dublin Lockout is well known.
What may not be so well known is that during a shortage of fuel because of a strike in 1926, she drove out from Dublin, day after day, to the Wicklow mountains, loaded her car with turf and brought them back to the needy. This was the year before her death and although a very sick woman at the time, she carried the bags of turf upstairs on her back for the old and feeble when there was no one to help.
Ms Carey’s scurrilous comments are nothing more than further proof of Goethe’s assertion that: “the Irish always seem to me like a pack of hounds dragging down some noble stag”. – Yours, etc,