"You never saw such excitement"

Countess Markievicz dressed in a ball gown standing at fireplace. She was born Constance Gore-Booth in 1868 and came from an Anglo-Irish background.

Eva and Constance were devoted sisters and were regular correspondents throughout their lifetime.

Lissadell House was the family home of the Gore-Booth family in Co Sligo.

While at art school in Paris, Constance met Count Casimir Dunin Markievicz, a Polish artist, and they married in 1900, locating to Dublin in 1902 where both soon moved in artistic and literary circles

Na Fianna Éireann was an Irish Nationalist Youth Organisation founded by Bulmer Hobson and Constance Markievicz in 1909. This organisation had male and female members and was modelled on the Scouts movement

Eamon De Valera was elected Sinn Féin MP for East Clare in 1917 further to a By-Election following the death in the First World War of Irish Parliamentary Party MP, Willie Redmond. Constance, wearing a white coat, took part in the victory procession led by pipers.

Countess Markievicz addresses Sinn Féin supporters in Kilkenny from a platform during the 1917 By-Election. She was supporting Sinn Féin candidate W.T. Cosgrave

Constance, holding a bouquet, is seated on a platform with W.T.Cosgrave and E.T.Keane in the background.

Title page of UK Parliamentary document detailing the Representation of the People Act 1918, which allowed women aged 30 years and older (under certain conditions) and men aged 21 years and older to vote for the first time. This Act tripled the electorate for the 1918 General Election in the UK and Ireland.

Map of the Parliamentary Borough of Dublin, 1917. In the General Election of December 1918 Countess Markievicz contested a seat for Sinn Féin in St. Patricks division, an area in the South City Centre near St. Patrick's Cathedral

In the Summer of 1916 many of the women who participated in the 1916 Rising were photographed at Ely O'Carroll's house in Peter's Place, Dublin

The Irish Women's Franchise League (IWFL) was set up in 1908 by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins to secure the Vote for Women. In 1912 members of the IWFL attended a suffrage rally at Hyde Park, London.

Margaret (Meg Connery), Mabel Purser, Barbara Hoskins and Margaret Cousins were members of the Irish Women's Franchise League in Dublin who broke windows in Dublin Castle in 1913 and were jailed in Tullamore Jail, Co Offaly. Dublin Castle was the headquarters of the British Government in Ireland and they thought it prudent to remove the women from their support base in Dublin.

Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington with her son Owen Sheehy-Skeffington

Meg Connery from the Irish Women's Franchise League breaks through a police cordon to present Bonar Law (Conservative Party) and Edward Carson (Ulster Unionist Party) a suffrage poster on the steps of Iveagh House, Kildare St, Dublin. In the background Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington (unseen) is apprehended by a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington with Mary Sheehy-Kettle, Kathleen Sheehy Cruise O'Brien and Meg Connery at Richmond Barracks in June 1916 on the occasion of the court-martial of Capt. J. C. Bowen-Colthurst for the unlawful killing of her husband Francis Sheehy-Skeffington during the Easter Rising.

Portrait of Jennie Wyse Power, President of Cumann na mBan

Map of Irish Republic showing results of the General Election 1918

David Lloyd George, Liberal Party Statesman and British Prime Minister (1916-1922) addressing an audience indoors

Portrait of Winifred Carney, Irish Republican and Trade Unionist who contested a seat in the 1918 General Election in the Victoria Constituency of Belfast. Carney was disappointed to lose her election registration fee of £150, as she received just 395 votes.

Letter from James Bone, London Editor with the Manchester Guardian to the Home Secretary requesting an interview for journalist Evelyn Isitt with Constance Markievicz. Bone states "she is the first woman in the British Isles to be elected to Parliament." His request was turned down.

Portrait of Eva Gore-Booth (sister of Constance Markievicz) poet and Trade Union activist based in England

Letter from Eva-Gore Booth to Secretary of State dated 4th March 2019 requesting visit to her sister Constance in Holloway Jail. She questions the logic of stipulation that politics must not be discussed (transcript with image)

Group photo including Countess Markievicz, Kathleen Lynn and Madeleine ffrench-Mullen taken at Liberty Hall on her release from Holloway Jail in March 1919

Constance Markievicz embarked on a lecture tour of the United States in 1922. Here she is addressing a large crowd in Boston on the 30th May 1922.

Joseph McGarrity and Constance Markievicz with a crowd waving the Irish and American national flags. Markievicz embarked on a lecture tour of the United States in 1922.

Eamon De Valera and Countess Markievicz, standing in a garden with house in background

Alison Cowzer (Women for Election), Senator Ivana Bacik and Mary McAuliffe at launch of "You never saw such excitement": The 1918 Election of Countess Markievicz on 20th September 2018 at Richmond Barracks