Aristocrat and republican, socialist and artist, feminist and free spirit, Constance Markievicz, nee Gore-Booth, was a pivotal figure in the revolutionary movement that culminated in the Rising of 1916 and in its long and painful aftermath leading to Irish Independence. She was also the first woman ever elected to Parliament and to hold a Cabinet position. From the privileged nineteenth-century world of her youth at Lissadell in Sligo and an artist's life in Paris to the dramas and disappointments of revolution and politics in Dublin, her compelling story provides an entree to that tumultuous period in Irish history. Since its first publication Anne Haverty's biography has been recognized as a landmark in Markievicz studies, giving a historically complete account of a woman often maligned and misunderstood.

Her vivid and engagingly written story will be enjoyed as much by the general reader as by the serious student of Irish history. This revised, updated edition comes with a new introduction.