The Brabazons and Countess Markievicz (1867-1927)

By Michael Brabazon

The heroine par excellence of the struggle for Irish independence is undoubtedly Constance Gore-Booth, otherwise known as Countess Markievicz.  She was not only a fighter and Irish politician but also a leading women’s emancipation advocate and the first British woman M.P.  Her role in the founding of the modern Irish State is legendary.

The poet W.B. Yeats was a close family friend of the Gore-Booths and wrote of Constance and her sister Eva as "two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one [Constance] a gazelle".

Constance and Eva were descended from Jane Brabazon (1665-1740), daughter of Edward Brabazon, the 2nd Earl of Meath.  Another branch of the Gore family also had Brabazon ancestry, this time from the Brabazons of Swinford.  John Ellard Gore (1845-1910), an Irish astronomer of note, through his mother Frances Brabazon Ellard, was a descendant of Edward Brabazon, the youngest brother of Sir Anthony Brabazon Bart of Brabazon Park, Swinford.

Once again, we can appreciate and celebrate the importance of the Brabazons in the development of modern Ireland.