Eva Gore-Booth: The overlooked sister of Constance Markievicz
An Irish revolutionary nationalist politician, suffragist, and socialist, Markievicz was the first woman elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
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She was a founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan, and the Irish Citizen Army. She also took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, and sexism worked in her favour as she was spared execution just for being a woman.
She is well-known to most Irish people, and is seen as a leading figure in the fight for
Irish independence and social reform.
Constance's younger sister Eva Gore-Booth is not half as well-known as her. But her achievements are impressive too.
The EPIC Irish Emigration Museum said Gore-Booth is "an icon of suffrage, trade unionism, nationalism and LGBTQ+ defiance".
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So, who was Eva Gore-Booth?
Compared to Constance, who is reported to have been wiley, strong-willed and vocal, Eva was quieter, graceful, and empathetic.
According to their governess, Eva was 'always so delicate' and often let her older sister overshadow her.
EPIC said Gore-Booth was by no means a passive person, despite not minding blending quietly into the background.
"She was deeply passionate, a fact that is probably most evident in her poetry and she was a fierce campaigner for women's rights, worker's rights and animal rights throughout her life."
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Gore-Booth is said to have fell in love with folk-telling and Irish lore, and became a poet when Constance left for France to study art.
"Eva herself travelled, although her home was still in Sligo," EPIC said.
"That was until she met English suffragist and social justice campaigner Esther Roper. Whilst travelling in 1896, Gore-Booth fell ill and moved to Bordighera in Italy to recover.
"It was here that she met Esther Roper, who was also recovering from an illness. The two fell hopelessly in love."
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This is where Gore-Booth's status as an icon of LGBTQ+ defiance starts.
In a time where being gay was a punishable crime, Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper defied societal norms by being openly devoted to each other.
"Gore-Booth returned to Sligo and Roper to Manchester in 1897. They were barely apart for a few months when Gore-Booth uprooted her aristocratic life to live in Manchester with Roper," EPIC said.
The museum said Gore-Booth's queer relationship had no effect on her relationship with Constance.
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Eva and Constance. Photo: Lissadell House
"Constance was very fond of Roper too, writing that 'Esther is wonderful, and the more one knowns her, the more one loves her'.
"Roper and Gore-Booth came from completely different worlds. Roper's parents were working-class Irish immigrants, her father was a factory hand who moved to England during the industrial revolution.
"Roper was a highly intelligent child and became the first woman to graduate from the University of Manchester.
"Her compassion for working class women and her activism for the causes of suffrage and labour rights further inspired Gore-Booth to become involved in those social causes herself."
Women's suffrage, Irish independence, and death
During her brief return to Sligo, Eva Gore-Booth called the first women's suffrage meeting in a local hall in December 1896.
Though the meeting was scoffed at by new outlets at the time, EPIC said Eva was far from deterred from supporting the cause of suffrage.
An article in Vanity Fair stated how the 'three pretty daughters of Sir Henry Gore-Booth are creating a little excitement… supported by a few devoted yokels', never anticipating how the Gore-Booth sisters would create much more than a 'little excitement' in society.
"Esther Roper lit the fire in Eva Gore-Booth that ignited a life-long devotion to social causes. Eva's poetry is often politically charged, poems like The Anti-Suffragist being a short but particularly scathing commentary on those who turn a blind-eye to injustice," EPIC said.
"Though Eva was living abroad, she never forgot her ties to the Ireland, being outspoken in favour of Irish Independence.
"When Constance Markeivicz was captured in 1916, Gore-Booth and Roper smuggled themselves into a Dublin on lock-down to visit her in Kilmainham Gaol.
"Following her release from Aylesbury Prison, the couple met her and brought her back to their London home at 33 Fitzroy Square, which became known as a hub of Irish Nationalism in London."
In the 1920s, it was found that Eva Gore-Booth had terminal colon cancer. She begged Roper to keep it from Constance and it was Roper's brother and Roper herself that cared for Eva in her final days.
"She passed in 1926, the news coming as a shock to Constance, who was too bereft to attend the funeral," EPIC said.
"She herself died a year later in 1927, arguably of a broken heart, though not before writing in a letter to a friend that she was 'so glad that Eva and [Esther] were together. So thankful that her love was with Eva until the end'.
"Esther Roper died in 1938 and is buried with Eva Gore-Booth in London. The inscription on their headstone is 'Life with Love is God'."
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