The first female cabinet minister in Europe was not appointed in Moscow or Paris or London but inDublin. She was appointed in Dublin by Eamon de Valera in April1919 on his first appearance in Dail Eireann. Like Dev she was an Insurgent in 1916, but unlike the Irish Volunteer Dev, she belonged to the Irish Socialist Irish Citizen Army founded by James Connolly and Jim Larkin.
Her Ministerial Portfolio was Labour. So much for the canard that De Valera was a misogynist reactionary.
Neither Dev nor Countess Markievicz were Insurgents in 1919. They were elected
in an an election, “regarded on all sides (in Ireland) as a plebiscite” according to
THE TIMES.
The fact that Sinn Fein was unsporting enough to use a United Kingdom General
ELection to establish an Irish Republic gets the goat of Andrew Marr, who in his
memoir “My Trade” revealed that his youthful ambition was to be “a prick.”
I’m tempted to congratulate him on his achievement.
Comments are closed.