countessconstancemarkievicz

Ben Bulbin in background

www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/32400...

“The estate was once 32,000 acres (13,000 ha) but now consists of less than 500 acres (200 ha), the immediate demesne of the house. The house was the childhood home of Irish revolutionary, Constance Gore-Booth, her sister the poet and suffragist, Eva Gore-Booth, and their siblings, Mabel Gore-Booth, Mordaunt Gore-Booth and Josslyn Gore-Booth. It was also the sometime holiday retreat of the world-renowned poet, William Butler Yeats. He made the house famous with the opening lines of his poem:
"In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz"
The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissadell_House

s P o O k Y ! . . .

"Lissadell, Sligo, February, 1891.

"On [Wednesday] April IO, 1889, at about half-past nine o'clock a.m., my youngest brother and I were going down a short flight of stairs leading to the kitchen to fetch food for my chickens, as usual. We were about half way down, my brother a few steps in advance of me, when he suddenly said - 'Why, there's John Blaney ; I didn't know he was in the house !' John Blaney was a boy who lived not far from us, and he had been employed in the house as hall-boy not long before. I said that I was sure it was not he (for I knew he had left some months previously on account of ill-health), and looked down into the passage, but saw no one. The passage was a long one, with a rather sharp turn in it, so we ran quickly down the last few steps and looked round the corner, but nobody was there, and the only door he could have gone through was shut. As we went upstairs my brother said, ' How pale and ill John looked, and why did he stare so ?' I asked what he was doing. My brother answered that he had his sleeves turned up, and was wearing a large green apron, such as the footmen always wear at their work. An hour or two afterwards I asked my maid how long John Blaney had been back in the house. She seemed much surprised, and said, 'Didn't you hear, miss, that he died this morning ?' On inquiry we found he had died about two hours before my brother saw him. My mother did not wish that my brother should be told this, but he heard of it somehow, and at once declared that he must have seen his ghost.

"Mabel Olive Gors Booth."

See - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19014591

The two children on the (broken) steps - who might they be? Thinking around 1890 due to the condensed script titling.
The companion reverse-ish view also has two fellas leaning out of a window looking guilty - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000330176

Is May correct? She was released from Holloway prison on Friday 15th March and arrived in Dublin the following day and made a speech from the windows of Liberty Hall (according to press reports).

Merry Christmas NLI Marys and everyone - thanks for all the flickroonie fun this year! No idea who these people are, but the Countess Markievicz seems to have been one huge character - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Markievicz

John Spooner I suspect that the question mark behind May in the title was to seek clarification on that point John. If it was her release from prison in March then what, if anything, was happening in May or was this March???

Congratulation for your beautiful Album.

beachcomber australia If further evidence of her forceful character were needed (and it isn't) this is how she summed up her treatment in Holloway Prison
(Nottingham Evening Post - Thursday 20 March 1919)

Alright, I admit it; I too scribbled spectacles on pictures when I was four!

beachcomber australia And moustaches. I have no doubt that the moustaches in this photo are genuine, but some are of a style which went out of fashion at the time of the Emergency, and as far as I am aware never returned.

John Spooner via Grey Jay

That's Kathleen Clarke sitting on the other side of the Long Fellow.

Roll up, roll up! For a limited time period, we're accepting bets/educated guesses as to whether this was taken after the June or after the September elections in 1927.