British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn has proposed a Countess Markievicz memorial. He hopes that it will be erected in his London constituency of Islington North. Corbyn announced his intentions at the Labour Women’s Conference.
Countess Markievicz was one of the key leaders in the 1916 Rising and the first woman ever to be elected to the House of Commons. She was elected to the Dublin St Patrick constituency in the election of 1918, but like all other Sinn Féin MPs, refused to take her seat.
She was second-in-command of the Irish Citizen Army stationed at St Stephen’s Green during Easter Week 1916 and was sentenced to death. She escaped her death sentence by firing squad because she was a woman. Her sentence was changed to life imprisonment but she was later released.
She was arrested again in 1917 and was detained in Holloway Prison, which is in Mr Corbyn’s Islington constituency., for nearly two years.