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Family background and early life
Eva Selina Gore-Booth was born in County Sligo, Ireland, on May 22, 1870, to Sir Henry and Lady Georgina Gore-Booth of Lissadell. She was the third of five children born to the 5th Baronet and his wife and the first of her siblings to be born at Lissadell House. She and her siblings, Josslyn Gore-Booth (1869-1944), Constance Georgine Gore-Booth (1868-1927), Mabel Gore-Booth (1874-1955), and Mordaunt Gore-Booth (1878-1958) were the third generation of Gore-Booths at Lissadell. The house was built for her paternal grandfather, Sir Robert Gore-Booth, 4th Baronet, between 1830 and 1835 and three generations of Gore-Booths resided there during Eva's childhood, including her paternal grandfather and her maternal grandmother Lady Frances Hill.

Eva and Constance had several governesses throughout their childhood, most notably Miss Noel who recorded most of what is known about Eva's early life. She learned French, German, Latin and Greek and developed a love of poetry that was instilled by her maternal grandmother. Eva was troubled by the stark contrast between her family's privileged life and the poverty outside Lissadell, particularly during the winter of the Irish Famine (1879) when starving tenants would come to the house begging for food and clothing. Esther Roper later remarked that Eva was "haunted by the suffering of the world and had a curious feeling of responsibility for its inequalities and injustices."

Eva's father was a notable Arctic explorer and, during a period of absence from the estate in the 1870's, her mother, Lady Georgina, established a school of needlework for women at Lissadell. The women were trained in crochet, embroidery and darn-thread work and the sale of their wares allowed them to earn a wage of 18 shillings per week. This enterprise had a great influence on Eva and her later women's suffrage and trade union work.

In 1894, Eva joined her father on his travels around North America and the West Indies. She kept diaries and documented their travels in "Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Florida, New Orleans, St Louis, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Niagara, Montreal and Quebec." On returning to Ireland she met the poet W. B. Yeats for the first time. The following year she traveled around Europe with her mother, sister Constance, and friend Rachel Mansfield and, while in Venice, fell ill with a respiratory condition. In 1896, while recuperating at the villa of writer George MacDonald and his wife in Bordighera, Italy, she met Esther Roper, the English woman who would become her lifelong companion.

REFERENCES

James, D. (2004). The gore-booths of lissadell. Dublin: Woodfield Press

Lissadell House. (n.d.). Eva Gore-Booth. Retrieved 27th October, 2015, from http://lissadellhouse.com/index.php/eva-gore-booth/

Tiernan, S. (2012). Eva gore-booth: An image of such politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press