Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Eva Gore-Booth
-
Standard Name: Gore-Booth, Eva
Birth Name: Eva Selina Gore-Booth
In addition to her intense suffrage and labour activism, EGB
wrote poetry, periodical essays, political pamphlets, religious criticism, plays, and an autobiograpical sketch. Her work was admired by her contemporaries Katharine Tynan
, Æ (George Russell
), and W. B. Yeats
. In 1935, critic Richard Fox
wrote that EGB
had an assured place in Irish literary history, but in the early twenty-first century all of her texts are out of print. She is now best known as the sister of Irish patriot and feminist Constance Markievicz
, and for Yeats
's elegy In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz.
Donoghue, Emma. “’How could I fear and hold thee by the hand?’: The Poetry of Eva Gore-Booth”. Sex, Nation, and Dissent in Irish Writing, edited by Éibhear Walshe and Éibhear Walshe, St Martin’s Press, pp. 16-42.
Constance, Countess Markievicz,
spent time in Manchester where, along with her sister Eva Gore-Booth
and Eva's companion Esther Roper
, she campaigned against a Licensing Bill which would have banned women from working as barmaids.
Haverty, Anne. Constance Markievicz: An Independent Life. Pandora.
73-4
Fictionalization
Constance, Countess Markievicz
W. B. Yeats
wrote his famous poem In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth
and Con Markievicz, about the two Irish sisters, activists, and writers.
Smith, D. J. “The Countess and the Poets: Constance Gore-Booth Markievicz in the Work of Irish Writers”. Journal of Irish Literature, Vol.
12
, No. 1, pp. 3-63.
52
Cultural formation
Constance, Countess Markievicz
CCM
was a nationalist rebel whose work for the cause of Ireland led to five terms served in prison. Her parents were Anglo-Irish, Protestant property owners. The family divided their time between their Irish country...
Family and Intimate relationships
Constance, Countess Markievicz
CCM
was very close to one of her two sisters, Eva Gore-Booth
, who became a writer, suffragist, and labour activist. Constance's biographer Anne Haverty
describes their relationship as almost symbiotic.
Haverty, Anne. Constance Markievicz: An Independent Life. Pandora.
12
Residence
Constance, Countess Markievicz
CCM
spent much of her childhood at Lissadell. Here, she and her sister Eva
claimed a drawing-room, the glory hole, as their own, where they painted and wrote poetry respectively. Constance also developed...
Wealth and Poverty
Constance, Countess Markievicz
Despite his title and their family backgrounds, Constance and Casimir were not wealthy. CCM
's father kept to the rule of male inheritance and within that primogeniture: when he died in 1900, he left almost...
politics
Constance, Countess Markievicz
CCM
was first imprisoned at Kilmainham
and Mountjoy
prisons in Dublin. As support began to grow for the Easter rebels (many now martyrs to the cause), she was moved to Aylesbury Jail
in England...
politics
Constance, Countess Markievicz
Having publicly advocated a police boycott in May 1919, CCM
was again arrested and sentenced to four months at Cork Jail
. She kept in close contact with her sister Eva Gore-Booth
, friend and...
Family and Intimate relationships
Constance, Countess Markievicz
Near the end of her life, CCM
spent more time with her daughter Maeve
, who had been brought up by Constance's mother
, and with her husband Casimir
, who had not shared his...
Textual Production
Constance, Countess Markievicz
While CCM
's sister Eva Gore-Booth
was a successful poet (as well as a feminist and labour activist), and Constance occasionally experimented with her own poetry. She wrote while in jail, and her poems are...
