Grace Gifford

• Born 1888-03-04 · Died 1955-12-13

Gifford was an Irish artist and cartoonist who was active in the Republican movement. At the age of 16, Gifford went to the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, where she studied under the Irish artist William Orpen. In 1907 she attended the course in Fine Art at the Slade School of Art, London. She returned to Dublin in 1908 and, with great difficulty, tried to earn a living as a caricaturist, publishing her cartoons in The Shanachie, Irish Life, Meadowstreet and The Irish Review, which was edited from 1913 by Joseph Plunkett. Plunkett proposed to her in 1915, and they planned to marry the following Easter. He was arrested following the 1916 Rising, and she convinced a priest to marry them a few hours before his execution. Grace Plunkett decided to devote herself through her art to the promotion of Sinn Féin policies and resumed her commercial work to earn a living. She was elected to the Sinn Féin executive in 1917. Following the Civil War, her cartoons were published in various newspapers and magazines, including Dublin Opinion, the Irish Tatler, Sketch, and on one occasion in 1934, Punch. She illustrated W. B. Yeats' The Words upon the Window Pane in 1930.