Madam, - The argument in your columns about Countess Markievicz's activities in Easter Week 1916 recalls W.E. Wylie's interesting account of her demeanour at the courts martial. Wylie was appointed to act as prosecuting counsel. He was impressed by some of the prisoners, notably Eamon Ceannt and John MacBride, but not by Constance Markievicz.
According to him, the court expected she would make a scene and throw things at the judge and counsel. "In fact", said Wylie, "I saw the General [ Blackadder, court president] getting out his revolver and putting it on the table beside him. But he needn't have troubled, for she curled up completely. 'I am only a woman', she cried, 'and you cannot shoot a woman. You must not shoot a woman.' She never stopped moaning, the whole time she was in the courtroom."
Though she had been "full of fight" in Stephen's Green, "she crumpled up in the courtroom.
"I think we all felt slightly disgusted. . . she had been preaching to a lot of silly boys, death and glory, die for your country, etc., and yet she was literally crawling. I won't say any more, it revolts me still."
Wylie's memoir of 1916 was written in 1939 when he was 58. But is there any reason to think he was lying about Markievicz, or that his recall was defective? At least, that distinguished and very patriotic public servant and historian Leon Ó Broin did not think so. (Leon Ó Broin, W.E. Wylie and the Irish Revolution, 1916-1921, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin 1989, p. 27.) - Yours, etc.,
JOHN A. MURPHY,
Douglas Road,
Cork.