Minister announces Lissadell’s 1916 Rising and Yeats celebrations

The owners of Lissadell House yesterday promised to help right the wrong done to the "hundreds of strong women" who were centrally involved in the 1916 Rising but who were subsequently written out of the history books.

Eddie Walsh, who, with his wife Constance Cassidy, is owner of Constance Markievic's ancestral home yesterday welcomed Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys to Lissadell for the launch of a number of events commemorating both the Rising and this year's 150th anniversary of the birth of W B Yeats.

He told the Minister that while hundreds of women were involved in the Rising, and thousands more were left as widows, who had to struggle to feed their families, “within a few years they were almost written out of the historical record”.

The plans of the Walsh Cassidy family, in conjunction with Sligo Field club, to celebrate the women of 1916 would no doubt have pleased two members of the Gore Booth family whose political and artistic endeavours got short shrift in some quarters in their day.

Among the historical documents which Minister Humphrey's viewed was a copy of Vanity Fair, dated 1896 which included a sniggering account of the struggle of Constance Markievic and Eva Gore Booth on behalf of the suffragette movement.

It record the efforts of “the three pretty daughters of Sir Henry Gore Booth” who were struggling for the emancipation of their sex “supported by a few devoted yokels” at meetings in far away Co Sligo.

The writer, who would probably be no fan of gender quotas, noted that Ms Gore Booth, who was to become the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament and the first female Minister in the republic, made “a pretty picture on the platform” with her sisters.

But he doubted “if the tyrant has much to fear from their little arrows”.

A more modern look at the impact of the sisters on both Irish politics and the suffragette movement will no doubt be part of the theme at a three-day 2016 commemoration conference to be held in Lissadell in May 2016.

Minister Humphreys also announced details of the Great Yeats Birthday Party which takes place at Lissadell on June 13th.

Several first editions of the poet’s work as well as a number of Jack B Yeats paintings have found a home in Lissadell .

The Minister was shown into the ante room , once upon a time the room where Constance Gore Booth liked to paint, and where her sketches now jostle for position with work by Yeats and AE another frequent visitor to the house.

With the emphasis very much on celebration, Mr Walsh was careful to point out that one of those present to show solidarity was chief executive of Sligo County council Ciaran Hayes.

The Minister was effusive in her praise for the restoration work at the house and nodded enthusiastically as the owner pointed out across the lawn to the spot where Leonard Cohen played.

“He has promised to come back – not this year but soon”, Mr Walsh told her.

Describing Lissadell as “a fantastic asset for Co Sligo” Ms Humphreys did hint at help in the future saying that as the economy improves she hoped to be in a position” to gradually increase supports” for such buildings.

She said that houses such as Lissadell “tell the stories not just of the families who created them, but also the communities and individuals who continue to sustain them”.