Markievicz and the rising

maryishere

Grandeeod wrote: »

You are entitled to your opinion on the rising, but please do not schew matters by incorrectly citing a media piece, that I found to be fair and balanced.

I was talking about the RTE news item, which was very unfair and unbalanced.
No mention of the unarmed poor Co. Clare constable that Markievicz murdered on that piece....you would think that RTE thought she was the Irish version of Ghandi. In 100 years time, would RTE be interviewing an admirer of the Omagh bomber and showing a long interview on the main news with the admirer declaring how the bomber was so brave, and showing a copybook with plans for the action, and how the brave person fought for the poor people of Ireland etc?

Grandeeod

maryishere wrote: »

In 100 years time, would RTE be interviewing an admirer of the Omagh bomber and showing a long interview on the main news with the admirer declaring how the bomber was so brave, and showing a copybook with plans for the action, and how the brave person fought for the poor people of Ireland etc?

You seem to think that you are comparing like with like, but you aren't. You are comparing an event 18 years ago with an event 100 years ago without considering the historical context.

maryishere

Grandeeod wrote: »

You seem to think that you are comparing like with like, but you aren't.

I never said it was exactly like with like, because for one thing the events are 80 odd years apart, and the world has changed a lot. However it cannot be denied than 1916 has claimed lives up to and including the prison officer killed in the north a week or 2 ago by Republicans who proclaim that they see themselves as successors to the rebels of 1916.

riffmongous

jeamimus wrote: »

Like it or not, there are parallels; self appointed people, some with a death wish, killing to bring about political change in the absence of substantial public support...

Obviously the emphasis on extreme violence with the objective simply to create terror are not applicable in 1916, nor is the overbearing theological justification.

Parallels.. you can find parallels between just about everything when you look hard enough and when you pick as extreme and emotive a group as IS that is inflammatory and not very balanced in my view. We can find parallels between the British Empire and IS or the Nazis and ignore all the stuff they dont have in common if we want to, but I very much doubt and hope any tv program would air those views.

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

I was talking about the RTE news item, which was very unfair and unbalanced.
No mention of the unarmed poor Co. Clare constable that Markievicz murdered on that piece....you would think that RTE thought she was the Irish version of Ghandi. In 100 years time, would RTE be interviewing an admirer of the Omagh bomber and showing a long interview on the main news with the admirer declaring how the bomber was so brave, and showing a copybook with plans for the action, and how the brave person fought for the poor people of Ireland etc?

What do you make of this letter to the Irish Times on the murder of the constable?

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/markievicz-and-constable-lahiff-1.1162588

Madam, - In his Irishman's Diary of October 14th, Kevin Myers recycles the allegation that Constance Markievicz murdered Constable Lahiff on Easter Monday, 1916.
This story first appeared in print in Max Caulfield's The Easter Rebellion (1965). Caulfield's account does not state the evidence on which it is based.
If, however, Lahiff was shot "within five minutes" of the occupation of St Stephen's Green, as both Caulfield and the Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook state, it was not Countess Markievicz who shot him. Several witnesses saw her, accompanied by Kathleen Lynn, delivering supplies to City Hall at the very time that Constable Lahiff was shot. Diana Norman, who collected the evidence in her book Terrible Beauty - a Life of Constance Markievicz (Poolbeg, 1988), states (p. 140): "What is significant is how willingly the story that she shot an unarmed man has been received and the tenacity with which it has been remembered since. It may be that some flawed, unconscious logic has been going on in the male Irish mind.
"Two rules of gentlemanly warfare were broken at Stephen's Green on Easter Monday: a helpless man died and a woman displayed a joy in battle; therefore the woman broke both rules; QED, Constance shot PC Lahiff."
The former keeper of State papers, Breandán MacGiolla Chiolle, informed Ms Norman that he had come across no evidence in his research among the State papers to indicate the truth of the rumour.
If Mr Myers has some compelling evidence to indicate the contrary, I will be pleased to follow it up. If not, as this is a matter of justice, I hope he will acknowledge his allegation is baseless. - Yours, etc.,
CLAIRE McGRATH GUERIN,
Department of
Modern History,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.

Is it not just witness against witness? She was never tried for the murder was she, and the witness statement was never used

maryishere

riffmongous wrote: »

What do you make of this letter to the Irish Times on the murder of the constable?

Paper does not refuse ink, and I would not subscribe to that rag the Irish Times. I gave up reading it many many years ago when it was pointed out to me it was consistently spouting anti-British rhetoric in some of its sports columns. That was the final straw.

Anyway back to the terrorist Markievicz, I would prefer go on eye witness accounts of those who were on Harcourt st that day. Not all were intimidated to keep their mouths shot. For example nurse Fitzgerald said what many were afraid to say.

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

Paper does not refuse ink, and I would not subscribe to that rag the Irish Times. I gave up reading it many many years ago when it was pointed out to me it was consistently spouting anti-British rhetoric in some of its sports columns. That was the final straw.

Anyway back to the terrorist Markievicz, I would prefer go on eye witness accounts of those who were on Harcourt st that day. Not all were intimidated to keep their mouths shot. For example nurse Fitzgerald said what many were afraid to say.

Or this one? From the Indo no less.. good god almighty, the Sunday Indo!!
Emphasis is mine.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/1916/just-who-was-constance-the-misunderstood-countess-34555881.html

But it is the matter of the constable's death at St Stephen's Green on Easter Monday that most commonly now excuses her vilification. There are at least three versions in circulation. I think it's true to say that most of her detractors know next to nothing about the facts; and the few who do prefer to ignore them.
The constable was Constable Lahiff, shot, according to the official report by the DMP - the Dublin Metropolitan Police - at 12pm or thereabouts, as the rebels were taking possession of the Green via the Fusilier's Gate. At this time Markievicz was at City Hall, delivering Dr Kathleeen Lynn, who was chief medical officer of the revolution, to her post. By the time Markievicz arrived at the Green in Dr Lynn's car, driven by Mark Cummins, the rebels were established there.
The only source for the allegation is 'testimony' from a Miss Geraldene (sic) Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's account, said to be from her diary of that day, is kept in the British National Archives at Kew, marked Evidence Against Countess Markievicz and stamped July 14, 1917. That it's from her diary, 'kindly supplied' by her mother who lived in Birr, can't be verified however, as it consists only of two typewritten pages. In fact, it reads more like a deposition, taken down by someone tasked with gathering incriminating evidence.
Geraldene Fitzgerald, a trainee public health nurse, tells how she was on her way back to the Nurses Home on the Green after her morning rounds. At 12.30pm she was in High Street and took a longer route home to avoid Jacob's where the Sinn Feiners were in possession. Making her way to the south side of the Green she saw the Sinn Feiners inside, digging trenches while others "were ready with rifles to fire on anyone in military or police uniforms who passed that way".
She sat down to dinner in the dining room with some colleagues. It would now be approaching 1pm, if not later.
"We were just taking our soup when we heard the most awful firing outside. We rushed to the front room to see what was happening. What we saw was this... a lady in green uniform... holding a revolver in one hand and a cigarette in the other.... we recognised her as the Countess Markievicz...'
From the window the nurses saw a policeman coming from Harcourt Street. "He had only gone a short way when we heard a shot and then saw him fall forward on his face. The 'Countess' ran triumphantly into the Green, saying 'I got him' and some of the rebels shook her by the hand and seemed to congratulate her..."
Apart from the crucial matters of the timing and the location of the shooting, which are totally at odds with the DMP's report, there are other extremely questionable aspects to this account. Among them are that the likelihood of a remark, as Fitzgerald relates it, carrying from the west side of the Green and across a wide stretch of road noisy with the activities of the rebels, onlookers and the traffic still going up and down, is small.
The dining room would have been on the ground floor from where you could hardly see into the Green. Also, Constance was experienced with guns since her sportive youth at Lissadell and its difficult to imagine her exulting like an untried markswoman in the accuracy of a shot at such close range.
It's hard to know what to make of Fitzgerald's account or to say what she saw or did not see - only that it seems at the very least fanciful and based more on a year's worth of rumours than on reality. It could not stand up in a court of law, which may be why it did not appear on Markievicz's charge-sheet when she was tried on various grounds in 1920. Only the obstinately mischievous - to put it kindly - can continue to cite it.

maryishere

"it did not appear on Markievicz's charge-sheet when she was tried on various grounds in 1920."

Even in 1918 I think the authorities knew it was a mistake to have executed the leaders of 1916, and to have made martyrs out of them by executing them. The plain people of Dublin spat on the rebels of '16 and jeered them and threw rotten fruit at them - I know that from speaking to children of people who were there- but after they were executed their popularity rose. Sinn Fein even got 48% of the vote in the 1918 election.
The authorities did not want to go hard on a woman, hard to blame them. A bit like proving something a murder that happened in a bar in west Belfast, hard to prove something without forensics, video evidence etc. Even if they wanted to.

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

"it did not appear on Markievicz's charge-sheet when she was tried on various grounds in 1920."

Even in 1918 I think the authorities knew it was a mistake to have executed the leaders of 1916, and to have made martyrs out of them by executing them. The plain people of Dublin spat on the rebels of '16 and jeered them and threw rotten fruit at them - I know that from speaking to children of people who were there- but after they were executed their popularity rose. Sinn Fein even got 48% of the vote in the 1918 election.
The authorities did not want to go hard on a woman, hard to blame them. A bit like proving something a murder that happened in a bar in west Belfast, hard to prove something without forensics, video evidence etc. Even if they wanted to.

And this part?

Apart from the crucial matters of the timing and the location of the shooting, which are totally at odds with the DMP's report, there are other extremely questionable aspects to this account

Do you think the DMP would not be able to properly investigate the murder of one of their own?

maryishere

riffmongous wrote: »

Do you think the DMP would not b

Society had moved on, it was hard to prove anything and I would imagine the DMP was conscious that many people had been shot, intimidated or burnt out for less. The authorities did not want to go hard on or execute or make a martyr out of a woman, hard to blame them.

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

Society had moved on, it was hard to prove anything and I would imagine the DMP was conscious that many people had been shot, intimidated or burnt out for less. The authorities did not want to go hard on or execute or make a martyr out of a woman, hard to blame them.

So the DMP found out about this woman's testimony dating from July 1917 and only then wrote their report on the killing and changed the basic facts so that it would conflict, and hence they wouldnt have to pursue the Countess?

maryishere

riffmongous wrote: »

So the ..

In more recent times, with modern forensics, video cameras, new technology etc, was anyone convicted for the murder of Robert McCartney in the bar in Belfast?

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

In more recent times, with modern forensics, video cameras, new technology etc, was anyone convicted for the murder of Robert McCartney in the bar in Belfast?

Is this what you believe happened?

So the DMP found out about this woman's testimony dating from July 1917 and only then wrote their report on the killing and changed the basic facts so that it would conflict, and hence they wouldn't have to pursue the Countess?

tipptom

maryishere wrote: »

Society had moved on, it was hard to prove anything and I would imagine the DMP was conscious that many people had been shot, intimidated or burnt out for less. The authorities did not want to go hard on or execute or make a martyr out of a woman, hard to blame them.

You seem to find it hard to prove anything but wild assertions and you even hilariously admit that you have stopped reading the IT because someone else pointed out to you that their sport columns are anti British or some rubbish.


Care to stick up a link to just one of these anti British sports items from the IT as I am sure it must have been very traumatic reading for you

maryishere

tipptom wrote: »

You seem to find it hard to prove anything

I would believe eye witness accounts of what happened there, when Markievicz shot an unarmed constable on Harcourt street. He certainly did not shoot himself. He is buried in Co. Clare now.

tipptom wrote: »

Care to stick up a link to just one of these anti British sports items from the IT as I am sure it must have been very traumatic reading for you

I noticed the Irish Times turned in to a rag many years ago, before t'nternet even.

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

I would believe eye witness accounts of what happened there, when Markievicz shot an unarmed constable on Harcourt street. He certainly did not shoot himself. He is buried in Co. Clare now.

One eye witness account,which seems to have some fundamental flaws when it contradicts the police report and plausibility, while other eye witness accounts place the countess at a different location.

Perhaps all these posts could be split off into a separate thread?

Arkady

maryishere wrote: »

In more recent times, with modern forensics, video cameras, new technology etc, was anyone convicted for the murder of Robert McCartney in the bar in Belfast?

Jean McConville never happened either apparently.

riffmongous

Arkady wrote: »

Jean McConville never happened either apparently.

I see you thanked post #34 too, do you also still believe in Countess Markievicz's guilt in light of post #35?

maryishere

Arkady wrote: »

Jean McConville never happened either apparently.

+1.
And Gerry was never in the PIRA in Belfast or had anything to do with the PIRA.

Arkady

riffmongous wrote: »

I see you thanked post #34 too, do you also still believe in Countess Markievicz's guilt in light of post #35?

Given that the murder victims grand niece was on tv this week, telling of how her mother gave Markievicz's a good hiding and then chased her out of their shop when she dared to come in some years later to apologise for cowardly murdering her brother, then yes. She even kissed the murder weapon she used when she surrendered.

riffmongous

Arkady wrote: »

Given that the murder victims grand niece was on tv this week, telling of how her mother gave Markievicz's a hiding and chased her out of their shop when she dared to come in some years later to apologise for cowardly murdering her brother, then yes. She even kissed the murder weapon she used when she surrendered.

So you think the police falsified their report and the physical flaws in the testimony can be ignored? And the other witnesses were lying?

Apart from the crucial matters of the timing and the location of the shooting, which are totally at odds with the DMP's report, there are other extremely questionable aspects to this account

Arkady

riffmongous wrote: »

So you think the police falsified their report and the physical flaws in the testimony can be ignored? And the other witnesses were lying?

so why did she attempt to apologise for mudering him to his relatives then ?

maryishere

I do not think Matrkievicz was lying about shooting the constable when she tried to apologize for shooting the unarmed man years later.

riffmongous

Arkady wrote: »

so why did she attempt to apologise for mudering him to his relatives then ?

Did she really? Your post is the first I have ever heard of it, this is word against word I would think, but the case against the killing also seems to have more to it in the case of discrepancies between the reports on the killing.

jonniebgood1

Arkady wrote: »

so why did she attempt to apologise for mudering him to his relatives then ?

maryishere wrote: »

I do not think Matrkievicz was lying about shooting the constable when she tried to apologize for shooting the unarmed man years later.

Please provide source.

Arkady

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Please provide source.

RTE interview with the victims grand niece, I caught the program half way through and there's been that many on this week, I don't know its name, I'm sure someone neutral will. Worst of all he was even on a first name basis with her and he'd helped her many times in the past. (that's why she tried to smooth it over with the relatives later) He just wouldn't hand over the keys to her that day.

maryishere

riffmongous wrote: »

... the killing ...... the killing.

It was not a killing. Shooting dead an unarmed constable with her revolver was murder, plain and simple. His relatives in Co. Clare also know that a lot more than one witness saw her doing it.
Even Markievicz expressed some remorse in her later years at her murder of him.

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

It was not a killing. Shooting dead an unarmed constable with her revolver was murder, plain and simple. His relatives in Co. Clare also know that a lot more than one witness saw her doing it.
Even Markievicz expressed some remorse in her later years at her murder of him.

Sources please. So far you have provided nothing and appear to not even consider the rest of the evidence

maryishere

Why was this thread butchered, the first pages cut off and its title changed?

Anyway, for those who did not see the RTE programme during the week, here is a little snipped from another source:

Dublin woman Margaret Donnelly would have been the unarmed constable’s second cousin.

She said: “Michael Lahiff was my father Billy Lahiff’s cousin.

“He was on duty at St Stephen’s Green on Easter Monday when Countess Markievicz arrived and asked him to hand over the keys.

“My father said she knew his name. Markievicz said, ‘Mick, give me the keys.’

“He refused and then she riddled him at the corner of Cuffe Street beside the Unitarian Church.” The 87-year-old added: “Two nurses saw her pull the trigger.

“It’s a pity that they never came forward because she would have been charged with murder.

“He died from his injuries later that day at the Meath Hospital.”

The 28-year-old victim, officer number 125B, worked for the Dublin Metropolitan Police for five years before his death.

His grave at Glasnevin Cemetery reads: “Sacred to the memory of Michael Lahiff who died on April 1916 from wounds received whilst gallantly doing his duty as a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Erected by his sorrowing parents, brothers and sisters and by members of the Irish Police and Constabulary recognition fund.”


It has been claimed that, as she surrendered, Markievicz kissed her revolver before handing it over to a British officer.

At her court-martial she was condemned to death for her part in the Rising, but she had her sentence commuted to penal servitude for life because she was a woman.

Under the general amnesty of 1917, Markievicz was released and soon converted to the Catholic faith. She was elected to the Dail for Fianna Fail in 1926 but died a year later.

Margaret, whose maiden name is Lahiff, claimed: “After Markievicz was released from jail she walked into my grandfather Fredrick’s shop on Castle Street to apologise for killing Michael.

“They were plumbers and gas- fitting contractors.

“My granny Elizabeth ran her out of the shop and she left without her skirt.”
http://www.thesun.ie/irishsol/homepage/news/6992140/Was-Countess-Markievicz-a-hero-or-a-cold-blooded-killer.html

Some things never change. Its not popular to challenge a national "hero". In more recent times, with modern forensics, video cameras, new technology etc, was anyone convicted for the murder of Robert McCartney in the bar in Belfast? Everyone in the crowded bar was in the toilet at the time and saw nothing?

riffmongous

maryishere wrote: »

She said: “Michael Lahiff was my father Billy Lahiff’s cousin.

“He was on duty at St Stephen’s Green on Easter Monday when Countess Markievicz arrived and asked him to hand over the keys.

“My father said she knew his name. Markievicz said, ‘Mick, give me the keys.’

“He refused and then she riddled him at the corner of Cuffe Street beside the Unitarian Church.” The 87-year-old added: “Two nurses saw her pull the trigger.

“It’s a pity that they never came forward because she would have been charged with murder.

“He died from his injuries later that day at the Meath Hospital.”

Margaret, whose maiden name is Lahiff, claimed: “After Markievicz was released from jail she walked into my grandfather Fredrick’s shop on Castle Street to apologise for killing Michael.

“They were plumbers and gas- fitting contractors.

“My granny Elizabeth ran her out of the shop and she left without her skirt.”
http://www.thesun.ie/irishsol/homepage/news/6992140/Was-Countess-Markievicz-a-hero-or-a-cold-blooded-killer.html

So someone must have heard the conversation between the two in order to report what was said, which is not mentioned in the nurse report as far as I know, yet the nurse report from a different part of the Square is relied on for the witnessing of the trigger pull? Does not add up

And the skirt story is nice but there is not a shred of evidence for it is there?

Grandeeod

maryishere wrote: »

Why was this thread butchered, the first pages cut off and its title changed?

Anyway, for those who did not see the RTE programme during the week, here is a little snipped from another source:

Dublin woman Margaret Donnelly would have been the unarmed constable’s second cousin.

She said: “Michael Lahiff was my father Billy Lahiff’s cousin.

“He was on duty at St Stephen’s Green on Easter Monday when Countess Markievicz arrived and asked him to hand over the keys.

“My father said she knew his name. Markievicz said, ‘Mick, give me the keys.’

“He refused and then she riddled him at the corner of Cuffe Street beside the Unitarian Church.” The 87-year-old added: “Two nurses saw her pull the trigger.

“It’s a pity that they never came forward because she would have been charged with murder.

“He died from his injuries later that day at the Meath Hospital.”

The 28-year-old victim, officer number 125B, worked for the Dublin Metropolitan Police for five years before his death.

His grave at Glasnevin Cemetery reads: “Sacred to the memory of Michael Lahiff who died on April 1916 from wounds received whilst gallantly doing his duty as a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Erected by his sorrowing parents, brothers and sisters and by members of the Irish Police and Constabulary recognition fund.”


It has been claimed that, as she surrendered, Markievicz kissed her revolver before handing it over to a British officer.

At her court-martial she was condemned to death for her part in the Rising, but she had her sentence commuted to penal servitude for life because she was a woman.

Under the general amnesty of 1917, Markievicz was released and soon converted to the Catholic faith. She was elected to the Dail for Fianna Fail in 1926 but died a year later.

Margaret, whose maiden name is Lahiff, claimed: “After Markievicz was released from jail she walked into my grandfather Fredrick’s shop on Castle Street to apologise for killing Michael.

“They were plumbers and gas- fitting contractors.

“My granny Elizabeth ran her out of the shop and she left without her skirt.”
http://www.thesun.ie/irishsol/homepage/news/6992140/Was-Countess-Markievicz-a-hero-or-a-cold-blooded-killer.html

Some things never change. Its not popular to challenge a national "hero". In more recent times, with modern forensics, video cameras, new technology etc, was anyone convicted for the murder of Robert McCartney in the bar in Belfast? Everyone in the crowded bar was in the toilet at the time and saw nothing?

Your continued insistance on comparing 1916 and modern day terrorist related activities in Northern Ireland has absolutely no relevence here. It comes across more like an agenda rather than wanting to debate the original topic on what is a "History" forum and not a "Political" forum. I must admit that I was originally reluctant to engage you in discussion when you referenced Markievicz as a "murdering bitch". Not because I have any great affection for the woman or her politics, but because you have been running with the same mantra. Perhaps that's why this new thread has been created.