You will probably be thinking ‘what a boring old picture; just some old rich biddy’. When I tell you (now) that it depicts Countess Markiewicz you will think ‘what a boring old picture; just some old rich aristocratic biddy’. To get this name she had to marry a Count; she was born Constance Gore-Booth, into an ancient Anglo-Irish family. Her claim to fame is that she was the first woman ever to have been elected to the UK parliament; and she was elected as a republican. In 1918 the last UK elections to encompass the whole of Ireland were held. Sinn Fein won a massive majority of the vote in Ireland, but as they did not acknowledge the jurisdiction of the UK they did not take their seats. Countess Markiewicz did not take her seat.

Ireland, sometimes referred to as Erin in crosswords, after many centuries of being beaten up by England, and later the United Kingdom of Great Britain, became part of the United Kingdom on January 1st, 1801, when the Irish government gave up the ghost and voted itself out of existence. In 1921 Ireland was divided into the Irish Free State, which became a Dominion within the British Commonwealth, and Northern Ireland which remained (and still does remain) part of the UK. The six counties of the north had had vast immigration of staunch protestants, principally from Scotland. They express their culture by marching about in bowler hats. This incensed Republicans, who tried to shoot their hats off. Unfortunately their aim was not always that good.

In 1937 a new constitution established the Irish Free State as a sovereign state under the name of Eire, but still within the Commonwealth. In 1949, when it left, it declared itself the Republic of Ireland. By the time this is published they may have changed to something else.