Countess Constance Markievicz was a woman who entered the male-dominated world of conspiracy and revolution, an aristocrat who became a committed Socialist, a member of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy who was a fervent Irish nationalist. She was one of the first women to experience many of the problems associated with nationalist struggles and feminism which are still hotly debated today. She was also the first woman to be elected to the British parliament and the first woman to become a Minister of State in any European government. Her story takes the reader from the big houses and hunt balls of the Irish aristocracy in the last days of Empire to bohemian Paris, literary Dublin and into the world of insurgent nationalism. street battles, barricades and tense political negotiations. She experienced sadness and difficulties both personal and political but she carried herself with bravery and panache. Illustrated with black and white photographs.