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Violet Gibson - The Irish woman who shot Benito Mussolini

A bullet fired by Violet Gibson grazed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's nose in April 1926

On 7 April 1926 an Irish woman stepped out from a crowd in Rome and fired a shot at one of the 20th century's most infamous dictators.


One bullet grazed the nose of Benito Mussolini, but the Italian leader survived the assassination attempt.


Among the many acts of individual bravery against fascism in Europe in the 20th century, Violet Gibson's has been largely lost to history.


Of the four people who attempted to assassinate Il Duce, she came closest.


Now, nearly a century later, moves to put up a plaque in Dublin are gathering pace.


Her attempt on Mussolini's life came three years into his rule, as he was making a speech.


She fired three shots before the gun jammed and was then attacked by Mussolini's supporters, and only saved by the police intervening and arresting her.


After some time in an Italian prison, she was deported to England, something it is suspected might have happened to spare the embarrassment of a public trial in Italy.


She was subsequently kept in St Andrew's Hospital, a mental asylum in Northampton, until her death in 1956.In the days following the attempted assassination, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State W.T. Cosgrave, wrote to Mussolini to congratulate him on his survival.


Her story is made all the more unlikely the by the circumstances of her birth.


The daughter of Anglo-Irish aristocrat Baron Ashbourne, Lord Chancellor of Ireland (the country's highest legal office at the time), she was a debutante in the court of Queen Victoria.


Dublin City Council has now passed a motion which has given initial approval to put up a plaque dedicated to her in the city.


The motion states the "committed anti-fascist" should be brought into "the public's eye and given her rightful place in the history of Irish women and in the rich history of the Irish nation and its people".


"It suited both the British authorities and her family to have her seen as 'insane' rather than as political," the motion adds.Independent Dublin city councillor Mannix Flynn, who put forward the motion, said Violet Gibson was a person who "for some odd reason, the Irish establishment, and indeed the British establishment, have totally ignored".


"Like most people, and particularly women, who have done extraordinary things they are always pushed into the background," he told BBC News NI.


"If you look at World War One or World War Two, the women were right there with the men.


"Here and there now we pull the odd thing out of the bag to give them their dues, but it is a rare thing."


"For some strange reasons, Violet Gibson became some sort of an embarrassment, she got shunned, they tried to say she was insane to hide the shame."Mr Flynn said Ms Gibson's family had given their support for the plaque and he expected the proposal to progress to its next committee stage in the coming weeks.


He said while it would be dependent on securing permission of the building's owner, a likely site for the plaque would be her childhood home in the Merrion Square area of Dublin.

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