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Poet: William Butler Yeats
Poem: On A Political Prisoner
Volume: Michael Robartes and the Dancer
Year: Published/Written in 1921
Comment 1 of 1, added on August 24th, 2010 at 1:16 PM.
On a Political Prisoner
The political prisoner is Countess Con Markievicz who was condemned to death by the British Government for her part in the Irish rebellion of 1916. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment but she was later released. She was elected as a Member of the British Parliament in 1918 but refused to take the seat because it would have involved an oath of allegiance to the English crown. Following Irish independence in 1922, she was appointed Minister for Labour in te Irish Governement, the first woman Minister to be appointed anywhere in Europe. She died in 1927. She was born in Lisadell, Co. Sligo and was a sister of Eve Goore-Booth (1870-1926). Yeats met both sisters in in Lisadell in 1924 and later wrote a poem about them entitled "In memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz, which opens:
"The light of evening, Lisadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonas, both
Beautiful, one like a gazelle."
P J Madden from Ireland
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The political prisoner is Countess Con Markievicz who was condemned to death by the British Government for her part in the Irish rebellion of 1916. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment but she was later released. She was elected as a Member of the British Parliament in 1918 but refused to take the seat because it would have involved an oath of allegiance to the English crown. Following Irish independence in 1922, she was appointed Minister for Labour in te Irish Governement, the first woman Minister to be appointed anywhere in Europe. She died in 1927. She was born in Lisadell, Co. Sligo and was a sister of Eve Goore-Booth (1870-1926). Yeats met both sisters in in Lisadell in 1924 and later wrote a poem about them entitled "In memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz, which opens:
"The light of evening, Lisadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonas, both
Beautiful, one like a gazelle."
P J Madden from Ireland