Maud Gonne

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Nationalist leader, Maud Gonne (c. 1865-1953) was called the "Irish Joan of Arc," for her activities on behalf of Ireland's independence movement.

Born in England to English parents, Maud Gonne was the daughter of Edith Frith Cook and Thomas Gonne. Her mother was a member of the distinguished and wealthy Cook family, who manufactured silk, linen, woolen, and cotton goods and sold them throughout the world. The Cooks were also a military family, with younger sons joining the queen's service and daughters marrying officers. Edith Cook was no exception, for Thomas Gonne was a captain in the 17th Light Dragoons when they were married on December 19, 1865. It has been suggested that Maud was born the following day, or very soon thereafter. No record exists of her birth. Since it was illegal not to record the birth of a child, it is assumed that her parents wanted to hide the date. While Maud was often vague about her birthdate, she was quoted in an unpublished Dublin newspaper article as saying that she was born "near Aldershot Camp in 1865." Aldershot Camp, approximately 40 miles from London, was the military base at which her father was stationed.

In 1868, when Captain Gonne was assigned a post in Ireland, Maud and her younger sister Kathleen lived with their mother in a small fishing village north of Dublin Bay, while their father visited from the nearby army base on weekends. The girls did not attend school; instead, they spent their time climbing rocks on the coast and playing with the poor Irish children who lived a world apart from the wealthy English Gonnes. While the local children went off to school each day, Kathleen and Maud amused themselves under the watchful eye of their nurse.

The family moved to Donnybrook, a Dublin suburb. In 1871, Edith Gonne became ill with tuberculosis. Since the Irish climate was terrible for someone suffering from this disease of the lungs, Thomas Gonne soon decided to move his wife to Italy. But her illness had progressed too far, and she died during the trip. Gonne would later recall a comment of her father's, at the time of her mother's wake in London that had a profound effect: "You must never be afraid of anything," he told his six-year-old daughter, "not even of death."

Thomas Gonne left his daughters in the care of their mother's aunt for a short time, but Aunt Augusta was not the person to be raising two small girls. He then received notice of a posting to India and found a home and a nanny for the children in the south of France. The Frenchwoman who cared for them taught the girls French, history, and literature, as well as cooking skills; she also imbued them with an interest in art and radical politics.

But Maud did not become a child of the French countryside. She spent her summers in Switzerland and her winters in Italy. When her father became a military attaché, traveling throughout Europe, Gonne often met him in various cities. She had a truly cosmopolitan upbringing. Her independence and defiance of the norms were probably rooted in her unconventional youth and her exposure to places, people, and ideas that young English ladies rarely experienced.

As Gonne grew into her teens, it also became obvious that she was going to be stunningly beautiful. As an adult, she was six feet tall, and her figure, face, and wavy red hair classed her among the great beauties of the age. An aunt, the Comtesse de la Sizeranne, took great pride in showing her off and introducing her to Parisian high society. Gonne received several marriage proposals before she was 18; legend has it that when King Edward VII of England was the Prince of Wales, he saw her at a dance and longed to marry her.

By 1884, when Thomas Gonne was permanently posted to Dublin and his daughters joined him, Maud assumed her absent mother's role as hostess of the household. She held parties and teas to help her father's career, impressing higher-ranking officers and their wives. But this family life was not to last: Thomas Gonne contracted typhoid fever in the winter of 1886 and died within a week. His body was taken back to England for burial next to his wife, and Kathleen and Maud - now orphans - were taken in by relatives.

The next several months were stormy ones. Scheming relatives, aware of the large inheritance the girls were about to receive, wished to become their guardians in order to gain legal control over it. They informed the girls that their father had left them nothing, and that they would have to accept being adopted by an aunt. But the girls were determined to earn their own living. Kathleen decided to become a nurse, and Maud trained to be an actress. Neither succeeded in their plans, but their activities kept them busy until their father's will was probated in the spring of 1887 and each became financially independent. With the greedy relatives left behind, Gonne returned to her aunt, the Comtesse, in Paris.

Involvement in Irish Politics

It was there that Gonne met and eventually fell in love with Lucien Millevoye, a French political activist. Since Millevoye was already married, their relationship remained secret throughout her life. It was sharing in his political interests, however, that shaped Gonne's life more than their romantic liaison. Millevoye's passion for his homeland corresponded to his equally deep hatred for England. He urged Gonne to get involved in Ireland's independence movement as a way to strike at the English. She took him up on this and eagerly began spending time in Ireland, traveling through the countryside to see firsthand the oppression that the Irish were suffering under their English landlords. Witnessing the eviction of tenants who were asking for a fair rent and the starvation of those suffering during famines, she quickly got involved with famine relief efforts and the Land League, an organization dedicated to reforming tenancy laws. Gonne gave speeches, rallying the Irish and influencing the decisions and lawmaking of their English overlords.

Becoming involved in Irish politics meant meeting quite a circle of revolutionaries and leaders in Dublin. Gonne's most famous and influential acquaintance - though she didn't know it at the time - was William Butler Yeats, whom she met in 1889. Not yet the world-renowned poet but only a nondescript young man who wrote a bit of poetry, "Willie" Yeats failed to impress her. Though they became friends, her heart was in Paris with Millevoye. Yeats, on the other hand, was totally taken with Gonne's beauty, spirit, and passion for Ireland, and his love for her inspired much of his poetry.

In 1889, Gonne had her first daughter by Millevoye. Named Georgette, the child survived only three years. Devastated by her daughter's death, Gonne threw herself with renewed vigor into her work for Ireland. She founded lending libraries in remote rural areas of the country, thus promoting the cultural revival then going on. During most of English rule of Ireland, Gaelic (the native Irish language) had been suppressed: children were taught only English, English literature, and English history in the state-sponsored schools, and often learned nothing of the language, history, or literary heritage of their own land. The cultural revival of the Gaelic language and literature was a key element in Ireland's becoming a free state.

In 1896, Gonne had a second daughter by Millevoye, this one named Iseult. Shortly after, Gonne left Millevoye. The break became final in 1898, when she discovered that he had fallen in love with someone else. Iseult Gonne was raised by Maud as a niece.

Gonne traveled to the United States in an effort to raise money for Irish causes and to work for international condemnation of England's continued rule of Ireland. It was during one of these speaking tours that she met John MacBride, a veteran of the Boer War and an Irishman from County Mayo, who was also traveling through the U.S. on behalf of the Irish. In 1903, the two married, which was seen by many as a terrible mistake. MacBride's conservative, rural Irish background clashed terribly with Gonne's cosmopolitan ways: a quiet, homebound, obedient wife was something she could never be. By the time their son Sean was born the following year, the couple's problems had already begun. MacBride was a heavy drinker, and it was rumored that he abused his wife when he was drunk. It is also possible that he discovered that Iseult was Gonne's child. In 1905, in a separation agreement drawn up in France, Gonne was awarded custody of Sean, but she was forced to avoid Ireland almost completely for the next 11 years, fearful that if she brought her son there his father could take him away. She was also afraid to leave him for long in France due to his fragile health. In addition to worries about Sean, there was also the fact that many of the Irish people were appalled that she had left her husband. Ireland was a profoundly conservative Catholic country, and marriage was nothing to be trifled with. Shortly after the separation, when Gonne appeared in Dublin to speak, she was booed by those who had once adored her.

On Easter Monday in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood attempted a revolution to rid the country of the English. The Easter Rising was a failure. When the English executed many of the captured Irish revolutionaries, John MacBride, now a martyr to the cause of Irish independence was among them. This meant that Gonne was free to stay in Ireland with Sean. She plunged once again into the work and agitation she had enjoyed in the past. In May 1918, Gonne was arrested, along with many other Irish nationalists, and imprisoned in England without charges being filed. Never extraordinarily healthy, having inherited her mother's tendency toward tuberculosis, Gonne did not adjust to prison life. By October, she was desperately ill. Rather than have another martyr on their hands, the English authorities released her. Despite the fact that she had been forbidden, Gonne returned to Ireland immediately.

Worked to Improve Prison Conditions

Spending the 1920s in efforts to improve conditions for Irish political prisoners, she visited prisons, wrote letters to prisoners, and continued to speak out as often as possible. By now Gonne was a fixture in Irish politics: she had been an influential voice for over 40 years. In 1932, the country honored her for her years of service to the cause of Irish nationalism. It would seem a fitting end to a career - but Gonne was far from finished.

The year 1919 had seen the founding of an independent Irish parliament, but it wasn't until 1932, when Eamon de Valera was elected prime minister of the Irish Free State, that the most significant ties between Ireland and England were broken. Abolishing the oath of allegiance to the British Crown that all Irish officials were required to take, de Valera continued a unilateral revision of the treaty that established the relationship (and lack of one) between the two countries. Though Gonne had originally supported de Valera's efforts, she eventually decided that they were not radical enough. Despite the fact that her son Sean had worked for de Valera's election and was his secretary, Gonne began speaking against de Valera and his policies. She also continued to work tirelessly with the Women's Prisoners' Defense League and to agitate for free school lunches for children.

In 1949, the long process of wresting freedom from the English-piece by tiny piece - was finally over. On Easter Monday, when the Republic of Ireland was formally begun, Gonne was one of the great nationalists invited to the ceremonies in Dublin; she attended with her son, who was now an active figure in Irish politics. One of the last survivors of her generation, Gonne struggled through the next several years; age and illness were taking their toll. She wrote her memoirs and was interviewed several times for reminiscences about the glory days of the struggle for Irish freedom. On April 27, 1953, Gonne died quietly at home, with her daughter Iseult, her son Sean, and Sean's wife at her side.

Further Reading

Cardozo, Nancy, Maud Gonne, 1990.

Levenson, Samuel, Maud Gonne. Reader's Digest Press, 1976.

MacBride, Maud Gonne, A Servant of the Queen. Gollancz, 1938, 1974.

Marecco, Anne. The Rebel Countess. Chilton Press, 1967.

Ward, Margaret, Maud Gonne: Ireland's Joan of Arc, 1990.

Yeats, William Butler, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats. Macmillan, 1916.

Gonne, Maud (later Gonne MacBride) (1866-1953), revolutionary. Born in Aldershot and educated in France, she arrived in Ireland when her father was posted to Dublin in 1882, shortly meeting the Fenian John O'Leary, and through him in 1889 W. B. Yeats. While recovering from tubercular haemorrhage in France she met Lucien Millevoye, a Boulangist intent on regaining Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, with whom she had two children, the second of which was Iseult (b. 1895)—conceived on the grave of the first for spiritual reasons—who was to marry Francis Stuart. Yeats proposed to her for the first time in 1891 and wrote The Countess Cathleen for her the year after. The relationship with Millevoye ended in 1899, by which date she was deeply involved in Yeats's life and work. During this period and later she insisted on keeping their relationship non-physical, preferring to regard it as a ‘spiritual union’. In Dublin she founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann (‘Daughters of Ireland’) in 1900, and later launched Bean na hÉireann (1908), a journal advocating militancy and feminism. In 1902 she memorably personified the spirit of Ireland in the title-role of Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Her marriage of 1903 to Major John MacBride, former commander of the Irish Brigade in the Boer War, disturbed Yeats, but he continued to write poetry about her. Her son Seán (Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1974) was born in 1904, but the marriage ended in divorce. She was living in France when MacBride was executed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising. On rejecting the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922 [see Anglo-Irish War], she worked for Republican prisoners and their families, and was herself imprisoned in 1923. A Servant of the Queen (1938) is an autobiography, concentrating on her ‘shining days’, 1890-1900.

Edith Maud Gonne, a social activist and devotee of ritual magic, was born in Tongham, Surrey, England, into a wealthy family of wine merchants. In 1868 she moved to Ireland where her father was stationed with the British Army, and she developed a lifelong identification with her new home. In 1874, however, several years after her mother's death, she was sent to England to be cared for by relatives. The arrangement did not work out, and a short time later she wound up in France in the care of a very independent-minded governess. She grew into an attractive young woman and was the subject of constant male attention. Her father moved her several times to keep her from the notice of the Prince of Wales, a royal heir who had a reputation for womanizing.

One of the determining events in her life occurred in 1886 when one evening she quietly made a pact with the Devil. She agreed that in return for the ability to control her own life, the Devil could have her soul. Coincidentally, a few weeks later, her father passed away. Gonne decided to become an actress, but an illness prevented her debut on stage. She retired to France to recover and while there she met Lucien Millevoye, a French political activist who sought to win back Alsace-Lorraine, which France had lost in the Franco-Prussian War. Their relationship solidified Gonne's anti-British sentiment and transformed her into an activist for Irish independence. She also had a child with Millevoye in 1890, though the child died a year later.

In 1889 Gonne met William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD). In 1891 she joined the HOGD and over the next few years became an accomplished magician. She settled in Paris in the mid-1890s and in 1896 worked with Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers and his wife Moina Mathers in 1896 in their exploration of the Celtic magical tradition. She also began L'Association Irlanaise to work for Irish independence. Yeatsjoined her in several lecture tours, including one in America.

In December of 1898 Gonne had an unusual experience of a dream in which she was carried into the spirit realm where she was married to Yeats. That same evening Yeats had a dream in which she kissed him. They would come to describe this experience as a spiritual marriage that would never be consummated on the physical level. They remained close friends and coworkers for the rest of their lives. In 1903, Gonne joined the Catholic Church and married John MacBride, but the marriage lasted only two years. In 1908 she again found herself working with Yeats. In 1917 he finally asked her to marry him, but she turned him down and he married another. The following year she went to Ireland but was arrested and returned to England, where she was imprisoned for six months as a member of the Sein Fein Party. Following her arrest, her son Sean (the second child born of her relationship with Millevoye) joined the Irish Republican Army.

Gonne's experience in prison diverted her activism to the cause of jail reform and the plight of the wives and children of political prisoners. She also served in the Irish White Cross, a relief organization. She remained active in pro-Irish causes. In 1938 she completed her autobiography, A Servant of the Queen. She died on April 27, 1953, near Dublin.

Sources:

Gonne, Maud. "Yeats and Ireland." In Stephen Gwynn, ed. Scattering Branches: Tributes to the Memory of W. B. Yeats. London: Macmillian, 1940.

Greer, Mary K. Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priest-esses. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Books, 1995.

King, Francis. Ritual Magic in England. London: Neville Spearman, 1970.

McBride, Maud Gonne. A Servant of the Queen: Reminiscences. 1938. Reprint, Woodbridge, Surrey, UK: Boydell Press, 1983.

Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne ca. 1900
Born	21 December 1866(1866-12-21) Tongham, England
Died	27 April 1953 (aged 86) Clonskeagh, Ireland
Occupation	activist
Spouse(s)	John MacBride
Children	Seán MacBride and Iseult Gonne
Parents	Thomas Gonne and Edith Frith Gonne (née Cook)

Maud Gonne MacBride (Irish: Maud Nic Ghoinn, Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríde, 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist and actress, best remembered for her turbulent relationship with William Butler Yeats. Of Anglo-Irish stock and birth, she was won over to Irish nationalism by the plight of evicted people in the Land Wars. She was also active in Home Rule activities.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Freedom fighter 3 Acting 4 Marriage 5 Yeats's muse 6 Autobiography 7 References 8 External links

Early life

She was born at Tongham^[1] near Farnham, Surrey, as Edith Maud Gonne, the eldest daughter of Captain Thomas Gonne (1835–1886) of the 17th Lancers, whose ancestors hailed from Caithness in Scotland, and his wife, Edith Frith Gonne, née Cook (1844–1871). After her mother died while Maud was still a child, her father sent her to a boarding school in France to be educated.

Freedom fighter

In 1882 her father, an army officer, was posted to Dublin. She accompanied him and remained with him until his death. She returned to France after a bout of tuberculosis and fell in love with a right wing politician, Lucien Millevoye. They agreed to fight for Irish freedom and to regain Alsace-Lorraine for France. She returned to Ireland and worked tirelessly for the release of Irish political prisoners from jail. In 1889, she first met William Butler Yeats, who fell in love with her.

In 1890 she returned to France where she once again met Millevoye. In 1891, she briefly joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a magical organization with which Yeats had involved himself^[2]. Between 1893 and 1895, she and Millevoye had two children together named Georges and Iseult. Only the second, a girl named Iseult Gonne, born 1894, survived. (At age 23, Iseult was proposed to by then-52-year-old William Butler Yeats, and she had a brief affair with Ezra Pound. At age 26, Iseult married the Irish-Australian novelist, Francis Stuart, who was then 18 years old.)

During the 1890s, Gonne travelled extensively throughout England, Wales, Scotland and the United States campaigning for the nationalist cause. In 1899 her relationship with Millevoye ended.

Gonne, in opposition to the attempts of the British to gain the loyalty of the young Irish during the early 1900s, was known to hold special receptions for children. She, along with other volunteers, fought to preserve the Irish culture during the period of Britain's colonization.

Acting

In 1897, along with Yeats and Arthur Griffith, she organized protests against Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. On Easter 1900, she founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann ("Daughters of Ireland"), a revolutionary women's society, to provide a home for Irish nationalist women who, like herself, were considered unwelcome in male-dominated nationalist societies. In April 1902, she took a leading role in Yeats's play Cathleen Ní Houlihan. She portrayed Cathleen, the "old woman of Ireland", who mourns for her four provinces, lost to the English colonizers.

In the same year, she joined the Roman Catholic Church. She refused many marriage proposals from Yeats because she viewed him as insufficiently nationalist and because of his unwillingness to convert to Catholicism.^{[citation needed]}

Marriage

After having turned down at least four marriage proposals from Yeats between 1891 and 1901, Maud married Major John MacBride in Paris in 1903. The following year, their son, Sean MacBride, was born. However, after the marriage ended amid allegations of domestic violence, including the molestation of Maud's then 11-year-old daughter Iseult Gonne^[3], her husband returned to Ireland. He was a veteran who had led the Irish Transvaal Brigade against the British in the Second Boer War. MacBride was executed in May, 1916 along with James Connolly and other leaders of the Easter Rising. Yeats proposed to her once again in 1916, and she once again turned him down. She remained in Paris until 1917.

In 1918 she was arrested in Dublin and imprisoned in England for six months. During the War of Independence she worked with the Irish White Cross for the relief of victims of violence. In 1921 she opposed the Treaty and advocated the Republican side. She settled in Dublin in 1922.

Yeats's muse

Many of Yeats's poems are inspired by her, or mention her, such as "This, This Rude Knocking." He wrote the plays The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen Ní Houlihan for her. His poem Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ends with a reference to her:

I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Few poets have celebrated a woman's beauty to the extent Yeats did in his lyric verse about Gonne. From his second book to Last Poems, she became the Rose, Helen of Troy (in No second Troy), the Ledaean Body (Leda and the Swan and Among School Children), Cathleen Ní Houlihan, Pallas Athene and Deirdre.

Autobiography

Maud Gonne MacBride published her autobiography in 1938, titled A Servant of the Queen, a reference to a vision she had of the Irish queen of old, Cathleen (or Caitlin) Ní Houlihan.

Her son, Seán MacBride, was active in politics in Ireland and in the United Nations. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974.

She died in Clonskeagh, aged 86 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

References

1. ^ 1881 census, Rosemont School, Tormoham, Devon
2. ^ Lewis, page 140
3. ^ p. 286, Foster, R. F. (1997). W. B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage. New York: Oxford UP. ISBN 0-19-288085-3

External links

• The National Library of Ireland's exhibition, Yeats: The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats

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