Maud Gonne - Marriage

Marriage

After having turned down at least four marriage proposals from Yeats between 1891 and 1901, Maud married Major John MacBride in Paris in 1903. The following year, their son, Seán MacBride, was born. However, after the marriage ended, Gonne made allegations of domestic violence, including the molestation of her then 11-year-old daughter Iseult Gonne, her husband returned to Ireland. Gonne and her husband agreed on the need for an end to their marriage but could not agree on the future of their baby boy. She demanded sole custody and the right to educate and bring him up, threatening MacBride that if he did not agree to this she would take a case against him for divorce. MacBride stood firm and a divorce case began in Paris. The only charge against MacBride that was substantiated in court was that he was drunk on one occasion during the marriage. A divorce was not given and MacBride got visiting rights to see his son twice a week at his wife's home. He exercised these rights briefly but decided to return to Ireland and never saw his baby boy again. Gonne raised the boy in Paris until her husband was executed in 1916. Then she felt that she could safely return to live permanently in Ireland. John Waters has described this episode as an example of 'parent alienation syndrome'.

John MacBride was a veteran who had led the Irish Transvaal Brigade against the British in the Second Boer War. MacBride was executed in May 1916 along with James Connolly and other leaders of the Easter Rising. Yeats proposed to her once again in 1916, and she once again turned him down. 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 Irish White Cross for the relief of victims of violence. In 1921 she opposed the Treaty and advocated the Republican side. She settled in Dublin in 1922.