Madam, - In his Irishman's Diary of October 14th, Kevin Myers recycles the allegation that Constance Markievicz murdered Constable Lahiff on Easter Monday, 1916.
This story first appeared in print in Max Caulfield's The Easter Rebellion (1965). Caulfield's account does not state the evidence on which it is based.
If, however, Lahiff was shot "within five minutes" of the occupation of St Stephen's Green, as both Caulfield and the Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook state, it was not Countess Markievicz who shot him. Several witnesses saw her, accompanied by Kathleen Lynn, delivering supplies to City Hall at the very time that Constable Lahiff was shot. Diana Norman, who collected the evidence in her book Terrible Beauty - a Life of Constance Markievicz (Poolbeg, 1988), states (p. 140): "What is significant is how willingly the story that she shot an unarmed man has been received and the tenacity with which it has been remembered since. It may be that some flawed, unconscious logic has been going on in the male Irish mind.
"Two rules of gentlemanly warfare were broken at Stephen's Green on Easter Monday: a helpless man died and a woman displayed a joy in battle; therefore the woman broke both rules; QED, Constance shot PC Lahiff."
The former keeper of State papers, Breandán MacGiolla Chiolle, informed Ms Norman that he had come across no evidence in his research among the State papers to indicate the truth of the rumour.
If Mr Myers has some compelling evidence to indicate the contrary, I will be pleased to follow it up. If not, as this is a matter of justice, I hope he will acknowledge his allegation is baseless. - Yours, etc.,
CLAIRE McGRATH GUERIN,
Department of
Modern History,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.