Gonne, Maud

Gonne, Maud (1866–1953), founder of Inghinidhe na hÉireann and lifelong political activist, was born in Surrey to a British army officer and his wife. The family moved to Ireland in 1867. Maud lost her mother at an early age, and was not sent to school, thus missing two important experiences of socialization into the conventional life of a woman of her time. In 1887 she went to France to be with her Boulangist lover, Lucien Millevoye, with whom she had two children, George (1890–1) and Iseult (1894–1954). Back in Ireland she developed into one of the most prominent and colourful nationalists of the period. In 1903 she married Major John MacBride, whom she acrimoniously divorced after the birth of their son, Sean MacBride. At the start of the First World War she went to France with an ambulance corps, but returned to Ireland after the rising of 1916. She adopted her ex‐husband's name for the first time after his execution, was imprisoned with Kathleen Clarke in 1918, and opposed the Anglo‐Irish treaty. In the 1920s and 1930s she was active in the Women's Prisoners Defence League. She was a lifelong friend of W. B. Yeats.

Caitriona Clear