Countess Markievicz, the fierce Irish revolutionary of the 1916 Rising, cultivated her romantic image by fusing a flair for theatrics with her great heart, earning forever a place in Ireland’s history and imagination. Constance Georgine Gore-Booth was born into County Sligo aristocracy, married into Polish royalty (hence the “Countess”), and was immortalized in poetry by W.B. Yeats who likened her to a gazelle. More a comet than a gazelle, Constance – once presented before Queen Victoria as “the new Irish beauty” – was, in 1916, sitting in Kilmainham Gaol, condemned to death by firing squad for “waging war against His Majesty the King.”