Maud Gonne MacBride (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. Active in Home Rule activities afterwards, she was widely admired for her courage and beauty.

Edith Maud Gonne was born near Farnham, Surrey, 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). Her mother died while Maud was still a child, and so she was sent to France to be educated.

In 1882 her father, an army officer, was posted to Dublin, a fateful occurrence. 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 1890 she returned to France where she once again met Millevoye. Between 1893 and 1895 the couple had two children together. Only the second, a girl named Iseult Lucille Germaine Millevoye, survived, and would later marry the Irish-Australian novelist, Francis Stuart.

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

In 1897, along with WB Yeats and Arthur Griffith, she organized protests against the Queen's Jubilee. At Easter 1900 she founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann ("Daughters of Ireland"), a revolutionary women's society. In April 1902 she took a leading role in a play by Yeats, Cathleen Ní Houlihan. She gave a powerful acting performance in that production, written specially for her and about her.

In the same year Maud 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 Roman Catholicism (due, at least in part, to his occult leanings, as President of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn ).

She married Major John MacBride in Paris in 1903. The following year, their son, Sean MacBride, was born. However after the failed marriage ended in divorce 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 1916 along with James Connolly and other leaders of the Easter Rising. 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 White Cross for the relief of victims of violence. In 1921 she opposed the Treaty and advocated the Republican side. She finally settled in Dublin in 1922.

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

WB Yeats was twenty-three when he met her at her family house in Bedford Park, London. He had never seen in a living woman so great beauty. Until she married John MacBride, Yeats had hoped he would marry her and repeatedly proposed marriage to her. Her sole purpose in life was concentrated in the attainment of an Irish nation.

No poet has celebrated a woman's beauty to the extent Yeats did in his lyric verse about Maud. From his second book to Last Poems, she became the Rose, Helen of Troy, the Ledaean Body, Cathleen Ní Houlihan, Pallas Athene and Deirdre.

Many of the poems of Yeats are inspired by her, or mention her, such as "A Prayer for my Daughter". He wrote the plays The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen Ní Houlihan for her.

Her son, Sean 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.

She was mentioned in the Bell X1 song Alphabet Soup and The Cranberries' song Yeats' Grave.

1866 births | 1953 deaths | Roman Catholic converts | English actors | Natives of Surrey | Irish stage actors | Revolutionaries | Roman Catholic writers

Maud Gonne | Maud Gonne | 昴德·冈昂