Irish woman shoots Mussolini

Timeline

Looking back over the last century, fascism was one of the great disasters to befall Europe. However, in its early years it was seen as an attractive form of government. When Mussolini first came to power, most of the British press looked on him very favourably. His brutality was tolerated because in that stiff upper lip kind of way, they could not expect Europeans to abide by British standards. The monarch even awarded him the Order of the Bath.

It came as a great shock to them that somebody, and a woman at that, would actually attempt to assassinate him. He was not everybody’s darling and Irishwoman Violet Gibson shot at him and wounded him in the nose.
Violet was a most unusual lady. She was born into a staunchly upper-class Church of Ireland family. Her father was Lord Ashbourne, a member of the Conservative government, who served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He introduced the 1885 Land Purchase Act, which bears his name. It might have been brought in just to ensure that the Irish Party continued to support the Government but it made land purchase possible for many tenants.
Her brother had rebelled against his father, became an Irish Nationalist and converted to Roman Catholicism. He was a great influence on his sister and in her 20s, she too converted. During the Great War, she became a pacifist and afterwards travelled around Europe. Following the death of her brother, she suffered a nervous breakdown. Then, in late 1924, Violet travelled to Rome, where it is said she intended to assassinate the Pope, Pius XI, because she believed that the Vatican should have taken a strong stand against the fascists.
In Rome, she stayed in a convent, where she attempted suicide by shooting herself in the heart. Her aim was off and the bullet lodged in her shoulder. She later told a friend that she wanted to die for the glory of God.
When other European countries did not stand up to the Italian fascists it seems that she decided to assassinate Mussolini. As he left a meeting of the International Congress of Surgeons, Gibson approached him in the street and shot at him three times at point-blank range. Again, her aim was not great. She just missed his head, but hit him twice in his nose. Mussolini was treated on the spot and then carried on but Violet was arrested.
There was much speculation about her attempt and some thought that she was part of a conspiracy. The police had confiscated her gun following her suicide attempt, so questions were asked as to where she got the second one. There were also questions raised about the amount of money she had, as it greatly exceeded the allowance that she received from her father.
However, she was released on Il Ducé’s orders and later deported to England. She was confined to a mental institution for the rest of her life. All her requests were ignored. Her letters were never posted, she was refused permission to end her days in a nursing home and was denied her final request to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.
Violet Gibson, daughter of a member of the British aristocracy, shot Italian dictator Mussolini in the nose on April 7, 1926 – 84 years ago this week.