Ireland's OWN: Women Freedom Fighters

Maud Gonne MacBride
(1865-1953)
—by Míchealín Ní Dhochartaigh

Maud Gonne, was born the daughter of a colonel in the British Army in Aldershot on 20 December 1865. After her mother's early death she was sent to be educated in Paris. In 1886, Gonne's father died and left her financially independent. Maud Gonne MacBride
Very early in life, Maud because interested in the Irish struggle for freedom. Although a child of an aristocratic family, she was wholeheartedly accepted by the peasants in whitewashed cabins. She was ardent and eager to help; and with the encouragement of Michael Davitt, she threw herself in the work of the Land League, where she tirelessly campaigned to save the homes of people who were being usurped by the British occupational forces.

Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin, also sought Maud's help with the establishment of his paper, The United Irish Men. He had only £20 to begin, and Maud helped him bring out the second number, putting in time, money and articles.

Additionally, Maud took an active part in the Celtic Literary Society and in the National Players' Movement, of which W.B. Yeats became president and Maud, vice president. The method they adopted was that of holding a series of festivals, as was the custom in ancient Ireland. Yeats wrote the play Cathleen ní Houlihan, and gave the play to Maud on the condition that she play the lead role. Yeats later wrote:

"I have seen Maud Gonne played very finely, and her great height made Kathleen seem a divine being fallen into our mortal hands infirmity. Since then, the part has been played twice in America by women who seemed intent on keeping their young faces...The most beautiful woman of her time [Maud Gonne] when she played my Kathleen 'made-up' centuries old and never should the part be played but with a like sincerity."

Moreover, the literary and dramatic revival owed much in its inception to Inghidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), an organisation of Irish girls and women, founded by Maud Gonne, for the study Irish language, literature and drama. Many who later gained their reputations at the Abbey Theatre, were students of Maud's.

Maud later spent several years in Paris, where she founded and edited an Irish Journal, L'Irlande Libre, which voiced the cause of Irish Independence. She also worked as an artist illustrating books of Celtic legends.

Upon returning to Ireland, she began pleading the cases of evicted Irish tenants. It was then that Maud discovered the many Irish men in prisons in Ireland and England, who were there under counts of "treason" [fighting British oppression], whom most of the world had simple forgotten. She began visiting them, and in the Voice of Ireland, she wrote:

"With some help and a little diplomacy of my own, I obtained from an unsuspicious Home Secretary a permit to visit eight of the 17 Irish treason-felony prisoners in Portland, three of whom had never received a visit from a friend during the 10 years of their captivity. I shall never forget that visit. On the way I saw gangs of convicts chained like beasts of burden to great carts of stones from quarries. At the gates, my visit caused a flutter among officials. A fashionably dressed young girl was hardly the sort of visitor they were accustomed to escort into the 'cage.'"

In 1903 Maude Gonne married John MacBride, a major of the Irish Brigade. After giving birth to Seán MacBride, she joined Constance Markievicz, James Connolly and James Larkin in the campaign to force the authorities to extend the 1906 Provision of School Meals Act to Ireland. She also started a campaign to feed poor children in Dublin.

When it was arranged that King Edward should visit Dublin, Maud helped form the Citizens' Watch Committee, which sent a deputation of two — herself and Edward Martyn — to the rally of the Parliamentary Party being held at the Rotunda in Dublin. Martyn suffered from stage-fright, which left Maud as the speaker. After Maud's speech, a free fight occurred that lasted for over an hour. This resulted in the end of the Parliamentary Party; Sinn Féin rose from its ruins.

During the First World War Maud joined Constance Markievicz, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Kathleen Clarke in the campaign against the conscription of Irish men into the British Army.

On 5 May 1916 John MacBride was executed for his part in the Easter Rising. Maud continued to campaign against conscription and in 1918 she was arrested and interned in Holloway Prison in London. After her imprisonment, she returned to Ireland. Maud began to diligently campaign for prisoner's rights. She spoke in Ireland, England, France, Holland and America. She was nicknamed the "Irish Joan of Arc."

When the pact between de Valera and Collins-Griffith was broken, and the Four Courts was attacked, Maud gave up her position as an Irish representative in Paris. She formed the Women's Prisoners Defence League, which arranged for food, clothing and other necessities to be brought into the jails for the prisoners. Maud was arrested for smuggling in items to Mountjoy, and went on hunger strike, as did others in the prison. the hunger strike lasted 31 days. Near death, Maud won the right to enter police courts and prisons.

After Kevin O'Higgins was shot, and several Republican men were jailed without evidence of any crime, Maud organised a public demonstration, and attracted a huge following, which marched down O'Connell Street carrying placards. She gave a speech against the "methods of savage repression," and the men were later released.

In July 1920, Republican courts of justice were set up to replace the British judicial system. The justices were men and women elected by Sinn Fein Clubs. Kathleen Clarke and Maud Gonne MacBride were among them.

Maude also worked for the Irish White Cross, which was formed near the end of 1920 to provide relief for families in distress as result of the War of Independence. After 1922, it became known as the Children's Relief Association and extended its assistance to children on both sides of the fight whose parents had been killed as a result of the Civil War. Kathleen Clarke and Maud Gonne MacBride were among the women on the Association until its dissolution in 1936.

Maude Gonne's son, Seán MacBride, also became involved in politics and in 1936 became Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army. In 1938, she published her memoirs, A Servant of the Queen.

Maud died at Roebuck, Clonskeagh, on 27 April, 1953 and afterwards was buried in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

See Also:

Sources:

Fox, RM: Rebel Irishwomen. 2nd ed. Dublin: Progress House. 1967.
Kostick, C and Collins, L: The Easter Rising: A Guide to Dublin in 1916. O'Brien Press. 2000.
Taillon, R: When History Was Made: The Women of 1916. Dublin: Beyond the Pale Publications. 1996.