Plaque unveiled in Merrion Square for Irish woman who shot Mussolini

Dublin native Violet Gibson, who tried to assassinate Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, has been honoured with a Dublin City Council Commemorative Plaque.

Lord Mayor Caroline Conroy revealed the plaque this morning at 12 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Gibson’s childhood home.

Gibson's plot was one of four assassination attempts aimed to kill Fascist leader Mussolini, where she pulled out a pistol and shot the politician at point blank range at the Campidiglio Rome on April 7, 1926.

Mussolini’s head turned right when she pulled the trigger, leading the bullet to only graze his nose. She fired again, but the gun jammed.

Mussolini's son, in his memoir, gives an alternative account, recounting that Gibson fired twice, once missing and once grazing Mussolini's nose. Gibson was almost lynched on the spot by an angry mob, but police intervened and took her away for questioning. Mussolini was wounded only slightly, dismissing his injury as "a mere trifle", and after his nose was bandaged he continued his parade on the Capitoline Hill.

It has been thought that Gibson was insane at the time of the attack and the idea of assassinating Mussolini was hers and that she worked alone. She told interrogators that she shot Mussolini "to glorify God" who had kindly sent an angel to keep her arm steady. She was deported to Britain after being released without charge at the request of Mussolini, an act for which he received the thanks of the British government.

The assassination attempt triggered a wave of popular support for Mussolini, resulting in much oppressive legislation, consolidating his control of Italy. She spent the rest of her life in a psychiatric hospital, St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton, despite repeated pleas for her release. She died on 2 May 1956 and was buried in Kingsthorpe Cemetery, Northampton.

Credit: Old Ireland in Colour.

Violet Albina Gibson was born in Dalkey in 1876 into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family. She received her Honourable title when she turned nine. Gibson was the daughter of Lord Ashbourne, Lord Chancellor of Ireland and the first Baron Ashbourne in 1885.

Educated at home by governesses, she was a debutante at the court of Queen Victoria, and lived a privileged life. She regularly appeared in the society columns, at balls, concerts in London and Dublin and social events at Buckingham Palace.

Speaking at the unveiling, Lord Mayor Caroline Conroy said, “In recent years the City Council has been working to put a focus on the women of history, with Commemorative Plaques being erected in memory of women like Kathleen Lynn and Madeleine Ffrench-Mullen, Anna Parnell, Margaret Keogh, Jane Wilde, and Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington.”

“I am pleased to be unveiling another plaque to a woman, a Dubliner who suffered from misogyny and from the stigma surrounding mental illness, due to which her real motivations were deliberately obscured.”

Also speaking at the unveiling was writer/producer Siobhán Lynam, whose 2014 RTÉ radio documentary, The Irishwoman Who Shot Mussolini, told Violet Gibson’s story to the public.

“I’m honoured to be here for the unveiling of this plaque to commemorate Violet Gibson who was, for nearly a century, a mere passing footnote in the history of Italian fascism,” Lynam said.

“Violet was a highly intelligent, artistically gifted, well-travelled and bold-thinking woman. The rise and violence of fascism in Italy horrified her. Of all the would-be assassins of Mussolini, she came closest to changing the course of history. Judged ‘a mad Irish mystic’, ‘a crazy Irish spinster’ by a world who thought Mussolini perfectly sane, she paid an enormous personal price for her extraordinary daring.

"Having endlessly petitioned for 30 years, appealing to Princess Elizabeth and Churchill amongst others, to be at least released to a Catholic nursing home, she died alone in her 80th year in the lunatic asylum. Her letters were never posted,” the writer noted.

Councillor Mannix Flynn, a member of the Dublin City Council Commemorations & Naming Committee who proposed that the plaque be erected, remarked:

“It is now time to bring Violet Gibson into the public eyes and give her a rightful place in the history of Irish women and in the history of the Irish nation and its people”.