Page 35 - Garda Journal Summer 2019

FEATURE | Violet Gibson
Violet Gibson -
The Most Unlikely
Assassin
Susie Poore explores the extraordinary story of Irish woman Violet Gibson who almost
changed the course of history.
Though most of us are likely familiar with the conquest of Benito Mussolini, Italian dictator and founder and fascism, history often overlooks the Irish woman who nearly succeeded in assassinating him before his acts would inspire Adolf Hitler.
On the 31st of August 1876, Violet Albina Gibson was born in Dublin. Gibson’s early life was spent in the affluent Merrion Square as her father was made 1st Baron Ashbourne. From 1885 to 1905, he went on to serve as the Lord High Chancellor of Ireland.
Gibson grew up during the time of
the Irish Home Rule movement, the
campaign for Irish self-government
within the United Kingdom. Isaac
Butt, a protestant unionist lawyer,
launched the movement in 1870
with the establishment of the Home
Government Association (which
would become the Home Rule
League in 1873). During the 1874
election, it brought 60 members
to Parliament. One such members
was Charles Stewart Parnell, and
he was elected the Home Rule
Party’s chairman over Butt in
1880. Parnell used obstructionist
practices to make Ireland’s
grievances known within the
United Kingdom. He reorganised
the party and brought together the
demands for Home Rule with the
increased support for tenant rights
to make Home Rule an influential political force. Ten years after Gibson was born, the first Home Rule bill
was introduced in the House of Commons by Prime Minister William E. Gladstone. However, it divided the Liberal Party and was defeated. Parnell would pass
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