#OnThisDay 1926 The Honourable Violet Albina Gibson, from Dublin, shot Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini twice in the face after he had given a speech in Rome about modern medicine. Both bullets passed through his nose & her third shot misfired. He declared it ‘a mere trifle’. The Italian police had to stop the fascist mob from beating Violet.
This assassination attempt was not a political, anti-fascist gesture however, Violet was having a psychotic episode and was convinced that she needed to kill someone to prove her love to God. She had also tried to kill herself previously for the same reason.
Deported to the UK, she lived out her days in a psychiatric hospital. Her story became known to the public because James Joyce’s daughter Lucia was in the same hospital too. Violent tried to take her own life again in 1930 but survived. She passed away from a fever in 1951. Nobody attended her funeral.
The Irish at War 