Maud Gönne MacBride (1866–1953): An Indomitable Consumptive

Abstract

Maud Gonne MacBride was an English debutante who became an Irish rebel and muse to William Butler Yeats. Wealth did not protect her or her family from tuberculosis but, in spite of frequent relapses and three pregnancies, she invariably recovered to lead an active, fruitful life until her death in 1953 at the age of 86. She refused treatment with tuberculin and the induction of an artificial pneumothorax but went through a course of creosote inhalations. Her indomitable spirit helped her to outwit the ‘Captain of these Men of Death’ at a time when he fully deserved that title.