COUNTESS MARKIEVICZ AND THE POLISH CONNECTION
RECALLED AT YEATS SUMMER SCHOOL 2002
Renate Senktas, a young student from Poland, who attended the Yeats
Summer School in Sligo last summer, was here to improve her English
language skills, especially in relation to the study of the works
of the great poet W.B.Yeats. However, she became sidetracked and
intrigued when she overheard the name Markievicz being used frequently,
and tripping lightly off the tongues of local people in relation
to streets and buildings etc., in the town. She wanted to know more
and learned that the Countess Markievicz was a member of Sligo’s
Gore-Booth family, and an Irish revolutionary who married a Polish
Count. Renate made contact with Joe McGowan of the local Countess
Markievicz Association, which is erecting a monument in Sligo to
commemorate the Countess. Joe graciously supplied her with brochures
and an account of the legendary lady, her fight for Irish freedom,
her death sentence after the Easter Rising (later commuted) and
her tireless and selfless charitable work on behalf of Dublin’s
chronic poor, all of which took its toll and resulted in her own
ill health and untimely death. Renate in turn had a surprise for
Sligo when it emerged that there is a Countess Markievicz College
in Warsaw, where it appears that the exploits of the heroine are
well known and admired to the extent of naming the college after
the Irish patriot. The college has 700 students. The descendants
of Markievicz family still reside in the area.
The international flavour of the Yeats Summer School is what makes
it a very special event and this year attendees at the school came
from as far a-field as Korea, Formosa, Italy, Russia, Germany, France,
U.S.A. and Britain. The Yeats Society aims to attract students from
as many and culturally diverse places in the world as possible.
Yeat’s drama was of course influenced by the ‘Noh’
tradition of Japan. The epic tales and sagas of many countries and
cultures inspired much of his poetry. For this reason Yeats has
immense international appeal. It is an objective of the Yeats Society
to forge links with other countries and it is in this context that
some initial steps have been made to make contact with the Markievicz
College in Warsaw. Perhaps a student programme can be arranged and
that this could be done in conjunction with the weeks of the Summer
school. Our young Polish friend Renate certainly sees such a development
as highly desirable and is fully in favour.
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