Violet Gibson, the Irish Woman Who Shot Mussolini (2020) - full transcript

"But you didn't know it was
Mussolini when you retweeted.

It said, "It is better to live
one day as a lion

than 100 years as a sheep."

That's a famous Mussolini quote,
you retweeted it.

Do you like the quote?
Did you know it was Mussolini?

Sure. It's okay to know it's
Mussolini.

Look, Mussolini was Mussolini.
It's okay... It's a very good quote.

It's a very interesting quote.
And I know it, I saw it.

I saw what... I know who said it but
what difference does it make

whether it's Mussolini or somebody
else.

It's certainly a very interesting
quote.



That's probably why I have between
Facebook and Twitter

14 million people and a lot of
people don't.

It's a very interesting quote and
people can talk about it.

Do you want to be associated with
a Fascist?"

"Under blue skies, the aeroplane
carrying Herr Hitler

comes to rest at Venice.

As the German Chancellor steps from
the machine,

he is greeted by Signor Mussolini.

This is the first occasion on which
these two famous dictators have met.

Each holds in his hand the destiny
of a great nation

and the whole world looks with eager
interest on this meeting.

For any momentous decision made by
either of these men

must affect the whole of Europe,
if not the world.

Austria is the gravest problem in
Europe today,



a problem that can only be
satisfactorily solved by Herr Hitler

and the Duce.

Will they do it?

They can make this unhappy country
the next battlefield.

We're convinced that they will bring
an end to the terrorist campaign

and bring you peace and quiet
in Central Europe."

"Dear Mr Churchill.

One of the reasons which so far has
made the war a failure

is lack of attention to practical
details

which when the crucial moment
arrives, makes all the difference.

Being a very practical person,

I lay a few points before you
in case they have been overlooked.

With regards to the parachutists,
has a map been drawn up

of all the open spaces in England,
Wales and Scotland?

Each enemy plane can bring 50
parachutists.

In one hour, 20 planes could land
1,000 enemy in the country.

Are you prepared for them to try
and land 10,000 men in one night

in different parts of England?

Have you enough rifles, machine
guns, tanks and planes

to deal with the situation?

With regard to assassination, I
give you the assurance that I never

intend to do it again because it is
not my talent.

And all the previous years wasted in
this place must be made up for

by using my real gift which, if I
had been allowed to use before,

would probably have prevented this
war.

It is a mockery to go to war and to
sacrifice all those lives for

the freedom of the individual and,
at the same time,

do nothing towards a case like
mine."

Well, I think that Violet's
childhood was pampered,

was privileged, was, you know,
very far from the blood and mire

of Irish politics and from the slums
on the other side of the Liffey,

from the kind of reality that she
became engaged with

actually later on.

And also because of her illness,
definitely held back from the world,

sequestered, as so many Victorian
young women were.

My grandfather was Violet's brother,

which means that I'm a great-niece
to Violet.

There were four boys in the family
and four girls,

so Violet was one of four girls;

my grandfather was one of the four
boys.

The boys were educated then at
Harrow and Trinity Dublin

and Oxford, but the girls were
educated at home with a governess.

Edward Gibson, Violet's father was
the epitome

of a Victorian conservative.

He was born in 1837, the year that
Victoria came to the throne

and he goes through Trinity and he
has a brief experience with the law

and then he moves into politics with
his father's wealth behind him.

And it's a really good career
decision for him

because he's a very commanding
figure,

very tall with this shock of white
hair on him and a booming voice.

And a lot of people fairly early on
have him tapped

as a potential Prime Minister.

He was elected MP for Dublin
University in 1875

for the Conservatives and he very
quickly becomes a darling

of the Conservative Party.

People like Benjamin Disraeli,
Randolph Churchill

are all taking notice of him.

Two years later, 1877,
he's Attorney General of Ireland

and by 1880 he's Disraeli's
principal advisor on Irish affairs.

And his politics kind of culminates
in his appointment

as Lord Chancellor of Ireland
in 1885.

Just as Gladstone is making
his conversion to Home Rule,

Gibson becomes the Lord Chancellor.

He's also given a seat in the
cabinet and becomes Baron Ashbourne;

he's elevated to the peerage.

Although the father was obviously a
very big and important figure,

he was also very much a family man
and apparently he really delighted

in his family and we've got a lovely
photograph of him

with three of the girls, and Violet
apparently was very fond of him

and they seemed to have been a close
family.

hen he became Lord Chancellor of
Ireland and became Baron Ashbourne,

then his children all became
honourables

and so Violet was then
the Honourable Violet Albina Gibson.

One of her elder sisters, Frances,
was my great-grandmother.

I've known about Violet ever since I
was a little girl

and been very sort of proud of the
story because it's so bizarre.

So, in the picture there is the Duke
of York and the Duchess of York

who are the future king and queen.

So, this is in 1897.

And they were visiting Lord
and Lady Ashbourne in Dublin

and in the picture also as well as
Edward Gibson and his wife,

the Duke of York and the Duchess
of York,

there's also Violet Gibson
on the right,

and she's there as a 21-year-old.

All of the material necessities were
dealt with,

so she was sequestered in this
gilded cage, if you like.

Young Victorian women in the high
echelons of society

and particularly in the Anglo-Irish
ascendency were pampered, adored

and essentially manufactured, if you
like, to make good marriages.

Certainly not to be independent,
free-wheeling entities.

It was a sort of a paradoxical
situation.

They had trips abroad,
they followed the season in France,

in St Moritz, in London,
in Buckingham Palace,

the Court of Queen Victoria, in
Mayfair where they also had a house.

Christian Science preaches that
health, wealth and happiness

will come from leading a good life
from being free of sin

and that bad health is a result
of sin and fear.

And so, I think, that must have been
very difficult for Violet

who actually had a lot of ill-health
when she was young.

She certainly had peritonitis and
various other

fairly major illnesses, some
unexplained and these kind of topics

would be discussed in the family and
would have been an important part

of their whole belief system
and I think that must have been

very difficult for Violet to accept
that on one hand if she was free

of sin, she wouldn't be ill,

but she was ill and, and quite badly
ill constantly.

I always think of the family motto
when Lord Ashbourne

was made the first Baron Ashbourne,
he chose a family motto which was

"Open O Ye Heavenly Gates".

And I always see Violet as somebody
who's looking for a way through

towards a new Jerusalem, towards a
kind of ecstatic reality

to substitute for the reality of her
own life which was very boundaried

and contained by these childhood
illnesses and by, I think,

an uncomfortable sense of not really
belonging in the place

into which she was born.

She's attached to theosophy. She
goes to Switzerland to that end.

I think she goes to Germany as well,
Italy and France.

Italy she's been as a child with her
father to the lakes

and has already developed a great
fondness for the country.

But just because you're from an
establishment family doesn't mean

that you are and this seems to be
something that repeats itself

particularly during the 1880s, 1890s
and particularly with women,

lot of women.

Fanny and Anna Parnell
and Jenny Wyse Power

who all found the Ladies' Land
League at this time.

Or one thinks of
Constance Markievicz or Maud Gonne

or Mary Spring Rice.

All of these people who'd grown up
in Protestant households

that were imperial in outlook and
yet the daughters of these families

are saying, "No, let's rebel against
the system."

"For a whole year, I have been
bothering myself over religion

and can now see no way out of
becoming a Catholic.

I have had a terrible time since
giving up Christian Science.

I am very sincerely sorry if you
mind my becoming a Catholic.

I hated the idea myself for a long
time, but gradually saw

that it was mere prejudice which was
keeping me back."

The problem starts when she is
introduced to the idea of converting

to Catholicism, most likely through
her brother Willie.

And it's through Willie, I think
that Violet begins to find a route

to what she believes will be a new
Jerusalem where the heavenly gates

will open and it's a particular kind
of Catholicism.

Willie's converted in Oxford and
that's the centre of what's known as

the Oxford Modernist Movement.

He's a Socialist Catholic and I see
her attachment to Christian Science

and theosophy and then finally
to Catholicism,

to Modernist Catholicism, as
something that's motivated

not only by some sort of spiritual
hunger or sense of deprivation,

but also by a rather sharply attuned
sense of social justice

and her own developing political
world.

And she's been agonising with
this decision for several years.

Uncle Willie we knew him as.
He was my, my great-uncle.

He was referred to in my family
as Mad Uncle Willie.

He, having made this break with his
family over religion,

he was also very strongly Ireland
for the Irish

which wasn't his background, it
wasn't the Anglo-Irish standpoint

and I think that was a massive rift
then.

So, Violet's brother Victor went
to the Boer War,

he was extremely enthusiastic about
it, he went and raised a group

of friends and other aristocrats,
they all went out together,

they trained together, they paid
their own way to go out there.

But it was extremely unsuccessful.
They had very traumatic times there.

They were captured

and I think there was great anxiety
would they come home at all.

Open O Ye Heavenly Gates leading to
a false Jerusalem

and it's devastating for Violet
in particular having suffered

the initial concern about her
brother in 1901, 1902,

when he was sort of effectively
disappears

as a prisoner in the Boer War.

Mussolini's father is a Socialist,
an anti-clerical.

He's called Benito Mussolini after
Benito Juárez,

the famous Mexican revolutionary
leader.

But also the influence of his mother
who was a Catholic,

he understood Catholic Italy.

The other important element of his
youth that I think one would have

to highlight is his move into exile.

He went outside Italy, he went to
the fringes of Italy in Switzerland

and in Austrian Italy and looked
back on Italy from there

and it was that which encouraged him
to use the language of Socialism,

of class struggle as his initial
stepping stone into politics.

"My dearest father. I am also very
grateful for the little fortune

you have given me, as it makes me
completely independent."

He didn't leave his fortune to his
heir who was Willie,

but he left it to my grandfather
Edward who's the next son.

So that Willie, in effect, was
disinherited,

although he inherited the Baron
title.

But it was... it showed how big that
rift had been.

The political rift and the religious
rift

had really torn the family apart.

The following year, he plays a huge
role in fundraising for the purchase

of the German guns that Erskine and
Molly Childers and Mary Spring Rice

then bring into Howth on Asgard
and these of course are the guns

that are going to be so prominent
in the Easter Rising in 1916.

Despite being very ill herself,
having just been diagnosed

with something called Paget's
disease, a form of cancer,

she also has appendicitis,
peritonitis and, you know,

when the surgeons open her up,

they cannot believe the sepsis in
her intestine.

She's in a terrible way.
She's fizzing with infection.

And in fact at that point Scotland
Yard open a file on Violet,

having discovered that she's on a
list of the delegation that wanted

to go to the Women's International
Congress and note

that she's a Pacifist and sort
of patsy for German propaganda.

But despite that, she commits
herself to propagandising

against the war.

She goes to Paris and volunteers for
a unit putting out, you know,

peace propaganda.

She's simply not well enough

to participate fully in any of these
things.

But of that 1915, 1916 is the period
where she falls into the arms

of this Father O'Fallon who actually
provides an answer.

He simply says, "You follow
the Jesuitical regime,

the praxis of St Ignatius Loyola

and you will find an escape from
yourself."

And we know that Violet is attached
to this idea of a passion story

as a personal journey of her own and
to the idea of some ultimate Calvary

for herself because of the message
she's taken from Father O'Fallon

in her Jesuitical retreat and
through the spiritual exercise

and through his continuing influence
on her.

If you can die unto yourself and
release yourself from these mundane

earthly physical problems is an
absolutely bonkers thing to say

to a woman like Violet who is
manifestly physically ill and frail.

This is not somatic, I mean she is,
she's very seriously ill.

For many periods in her life but
particularly when she meets him.

Mussolini fights the First World War
as an ordinary soldier.

It's very important.

He might have wanted to be an
officer but he wasn't allowed to be.

In 1917, he leaves the front.

He's wounded in a training accident,
a grenade accident

and the rest of the war he's
licensed really by the government

to continue writing in his newspaper
and to be a propagandist,

and because he continues to write
columns for his newspaper,

Il Popolo d'Italia -
The People of Italy -

this left-wing Nationalist newspaper
that he set up in Milan and which

continues to appear during the war,
he expresses all that in articles.

In fact he constructs a persona and
he constructs a voice for himself.

Victor, despite the trauma that he
must have suffered in, in the Boer,

during the Boer War, kind of repeats
the exercise

at the beginning of the First World
War.

There are a wave of strikes and
bitter battles in the factories

and peasants and landless labourers,
particularly in Central Italy,

in Mussolini's own region,
Emilia-Romagna, take the land,

they seize the land.

Three-quarters of a million
peasants, in fact,

form a trade union and they take the
land and start dividing it up

or farming it co-operatively.

The power of the Fascists begins to
establish itself at a local level.

They form violent squads and they
move into the factories

and in particular they move onto the
land on behalf

of the local landlords and they
suppress the social movements

of the post-war period.

The old liberal elites are
desperately seeking for something

to buttress them against the forces
of this popular Catholicism

and the Socialists.
And who do the appeal to?

They appeal to the squads at the
local level

and they appeal to the Fascists
as they're now calling themselves

when it comes to elections.

Victor's death goes off under Violet
like a bomb.

The first she hears of it is in the
evening paper in London.

She's in very minimal contact with
her family at this point.

We talk about social media now
but in fact news travelled so fast

in those days that it was often
something... you would read

of a death of a parent or a family
member through the newspapers.

He's found one day in the armchair
of a pub in Horsham, Surrey,

and he's dead.

And it's not clear if he's taken his
own life but he was said to be very

thin, malnourished and had only
three shillings in his pocket.

It's a sort of desperate end
for this dashing young man

who'd lost all sense of purpose
as a result of war.

And it makes Violet of course into
an ardent pacifist.

After Victor dies and she has a
nervous breakdown,

and that's the first time we find
her committed.

And Violet's reaction to this was to
go really quite sort of bonkers.

She goes and attacks somebody in
South Kensington who she possibly

thought was an intruder, it's not
clear, but she does draw a knife.

She's kind of lost it at this point.

She's overwhelmed with grief and
shock and the sheer exhaustion

of her long years of physical
illness and she's committed.

And this is Violet's first and sadly
not her last encounter

with the lunatic asylum.

"This is Italy in 1922.

These marching men are charter
members of a new

Italian political party -
the Fascists -

founded and led by a flamboyant
ex-editor, ex-army corporal,

ex-Socialist Benito Mussolini.

Fascism has been Mussolini's dream
for seven years.

Now the march on Rome.

His movement numbers a million
members including uniformed

Blackshirts and Mussolini
successfully forces his leadership

on the Italian King and people.

In the afternoon of October 28th
1922, in a downpour of rain,

Mussolini himself arrives.

Despite the fact that 80% of
Italians still support

the constitutional monarchy, his
threats of violence and revolution

win him the office of premier."

He was a very, very astute
manipulator.

So, he would use the violence of
other people

without necessarily endorsing it.

He would set people in rivalry
against each other and out of that,

as I say, not quite the puppet
master but the master impresario.

He was able to co-ordinate this
emerging and increasingly powerful

Fascist movement.

And at the same time he was
singular. He was Il Duce.

There was only one leader and that
was the way of framing the notion

that the state was hierarchical.

The society was hierarchical and
everybody looked to this figure

who then of course was reproduced in
film and in photographs and so on.

Politicians and, you know, high
society, were all seeking him out

and saying how wonderful he is.
All the women adore him.

He's got this amazing sort of
outdoor physique,

drawn by these wonderful sort of
macho poses of Mussolini

in photographed fencing or boxing or
riding or bare-chested,

scything the corn in the fields
glistening with sweat.

I think there were 2,500 poses but
about 30 million photographs

of those poses reproduced
and circulating in Italy.

But Fascism in return gave to the
Papacy what it had long wanted

and that was the Vatican as an
independent state within Rome.

But it was a deal which certainly
left dissident Catholics,

other Catholics like Violet Gibson
who may have had their own

contentions with the Papacy
out in the cold.

Giacomo Matteotti is one of the
principal critics of Mussolini

after the victory in the April 1924
elections.

He also has powerful international
connections

including with the Independent
Labour Party in London

who would publish a book of his
which had appeared in Italian

denouncing the Fascist violence in
the elections.

He also has inside information
apparently on a secret deal between

Sinclair Oil, an American oil
company and the Fascists,

giving backhanders in exchange
for a monopoly

of oil distribution in Italy.

He's driven down the Tevere in Rome.

He's stabbed, he's
sexually assaulted,

the ultimate degradation and insult.

And then his body's taken about
12 kilometres outside the city

and dumped where it's left to rot.

It's not discovered in fact until
August.

And it's an absolutely shocking
moment.

I think when she leaves London,

she is preparing for the
assassination of Mussolini.

She left in November 1924, very
suddenly, and she took with her

a sort of a hapless sweet woman
called Mary McGrath from Co. Meath

who I imagine she might have known
as a servant or a relation

of some of the servants that the
Ashbourne family had

in Dublin perhaps, and McGrath,
ever kind, ever faithful,

joins her and is with her right
through

this passion story as it begins
to unravel.

I think when she leaves London in
1924,

the murder of Matteotti is
uppermost in her mind.

The idea that she can avenge it by
assassinating Mussolini,

I think that's forming in her mind
at the time.

She certainly intends some great
grand gesture

because she packs a gun in her
luggage, a small revolver.

She'd been in doubt when she left
London.

I think this is the time where it
crystallises in her head,

in her mind that it's Mussolini who
needs to be taken out.

Mussolini is the killer of
Matteotti,

he is the sponsor of the squadristi,
these Italian Fascist squads.

"On his first anniversary, with the
aid of gunfire, kidnapping and

castor oil, he is absolute dictator.
Italians must call him Duce."

And we find her in this period,
1924, '25, right up until March '26

going to Trastevere a lot.

And Trastevere at that time was one
of was a very, very poor

working class district of Rome.

English guidebooks advised tourists
not to go anywhere near it

and you were likely to be, you know,
murdered, raped and robbed

in that order or the other way
round.

So, she goes and she was taking
little envelopes and preparing them

with bits of money to give as alms
to poor people.

But this clearly had become a sort
of ritualised journey for her

to go to Trastevere, so the
Socialist Christian mission,

that's the most obvious place she
would go to carry out

looking after the poor and giving
alms.

But Trastevere is important for
another reason.

It's where what's left of the
underground political opposition

to Mussolini is.

It's the place where opponents of
Fascism are gathering around,

various characters, one's called
Ernesto... Father Ernesto Buonaiuti

and he's a well-known Italian
Catholic Modernist,

connected to Willie Ashbourne,
her brother,

and no doubt introduced to her by
Willie and it's known that,

police records show -
because he was under surveillance -

that he was having meetings,
clandestine meetings

and that Violet Gibson was also
attending. So, we have a link there.

We have the Matteotti trial and we
have Trastevere as two sort

of hotbeds if you like of the secret
and ever-receding

in terms of visibility opposition to
Mussolini.

If Violet's intention in going to
Italy with a revolver is to shoot

Mussolini, say, she, she falters in
1925, in February,

just four months after she's
arrived.

She decides that perhaps the
sacrifice that's required of her

is a different one.

And she locks herself in her cell,
if you like,

in the convent where she's staying.

(GUNSHOT)

Violet has got herself into bed and
held a sheet and wore her modesty

to her chin but it's noticed that
some blood is coming out

of the corner of her mouth.

And amazingly, the bullet enters her
ribcage and sort of ricochets around

and ends up in her shoulder,
but other than that,

she sustains no real injury.

She's taken in and the bullet
is removed.

A statement is made to the police
who confiscate the gun, crucially.

She now has no gun and a priest is
sent to hear her confession.

I suppose you've come to take me
out of here?

Yes, dearest.

I am not suggesting...

At least consider London.

We could...

The family would...

The atmosphere in these places is
not conducive...

You don't seem to realise, Willie,
I'm with the nuns here.

Without the nuns...

You must try to re-enter real life.

Real life?

Really, Willie?

Might I remind you, you,
you led the way.

I'm not talking about your faith.

No. You're not.

Willie obviously didn't see it in
the same way.

I think he probably just thought she
was mad

and so he left when she'd refused
to come back with him

and that was the last she ever
saw of him.

Although they had been very,
very close.

He'd been a major influence
on her life

and on her conversion to
Catholicism.

"In the event of my death,
or that I am for some reason

unable to transact my own affairs,

will you please see that all my
belongings, papers and notebooks

are given to Miss Enid Dinnis,
36 Milton Road, East Sheen, London.

Much love from your affectionate
sister, Violet Gibson."

Miss McGrath. Would you mind going
to the dressmaker tomorrow

to pick up my order?

Is this a new outfit for a special
occasion?

No.

But I... I do need a day quiet
and alone.

She's now a woman alone with her
Irish maid who she keeps by the way

giving excuses to and saying,
"I'll be back in a minute,"

and then she just goes off.

She's very good at escaping, Violet,

at evasion in all senses
of the word.

And McGrath was rather desperate
because she doesn't,

can't account for her and she knows
she's meant to be looking after her.

In these periods she's going to
Trastevere, we know that for sure.

Where else would she have got hold
of a gun, a second gun?

She's got to have got that in Italy
somewhere.

Very hard to get an unlicensed gun,
any gun at all in Fascist Italy.

It's not like someone sent it to her
in the post from England.

She wouldn't have brought two guns
out with her.

I'm absolutely convinced that the
second gun, the one that she's going

to turn on Mussolini, she gets from
the circle of Ernesto Buonaiuti

or somebody else in Trastevere.

And I think they, they put her up
for it

and she's very much up for it.

I'm sorry to say but I have no
further need for your services.

Why, Miss Gibson? Did, did I do
something wrong?

No. Absolutely not. And I must ask
you not to disclose this matter

to anyone or disclose anything about
your dismissal.

Can you promise me that?

Thank you.

I've made all the arrangements
for your travel

back to Ireland on Monday.

On, on Mon... on Monday?

Yes.

Is there any... are you sure...
is there anything I can do?

Thank you, Miss McGrath.
You may go now.

"Mussolini.

Domani.

Piazza del Littorio.

(CROWD MURMURING)

(CHEERING)

(MUMURING CONTINUES)

Il Duce! Il Duce! Il Duce!

(CHEERING "IL DUCE" CONTINUES)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(CHEERING "IL DUCE" CONTINUES)

(FEINT SCREAMS)

(YELLING)

Everybody stay calm!

Nothing!

It will take more than this to
finish Il Duce!

Don't be afraid, my friends.

I am here. I will always be here!

This is a trifle, a mere trifle!

(CAMERA CLICKING)

She is completely calm having almost
been lynched by the mob.

She has had this great apotheosis;
this great moment of success.

She lies there like Prince Andre
in "War and Peace"

and looks up at the sky in a moment
of great beauty and release.

It's extraordinary.

And meanwhile Italy just erupts,
up and down the country.

The facista squads are out beating
up anyone they can find

who seems a worthy target.

Another response is of course
in Thanksgiving

and the tolling of the bells,
the "Te Deum" is played,

and various church bells and service
is held in many churches.

St. Mark's bells ring out in Venice;

The Vatican rings out the bells
of St. Peter's;

The Pope sends a message saying how
relieved he is

Mussolini has been spared by God;
protected by God.

Telegrams come in from the president
of the United States,

from the Irish president,
from Chamberlain obviously,

from King George V,

who says how appalled he is at this
terrible thing.

King George V, of course,
who 30 years earlier has stood

in the same photograph, just feet
away from the young Violet Gibson

who was then a beautiful debutant.

Do you understand?
Do you understand?

Miss McGrath knew nothing.

I dismissed her so that could
not be implicated.

As the person who tried to
assassinate

the Prime Minister of Italy you will
face the full rigour of the law.

Do you understand?

Where did you get the gun?

Who gave you the gun?

You want to know where
I got the gun?

Well, I had an old friend
in England

who gave me the gun before he died.

And I brought it with me to Rome.

When she's imprisoned she's
very calm and I think

sort of satisfied.

(RUSTLING/PAPERS SCRUNCHING)

(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)

Chief Superintendent Pennetta is a
fascinating character.

He believes, he suspects, and then I
really think he does believe

after a period of time that Violet
was part of a conspiracy.

The Gibson family regrets
the incident

and expresses warm sympathy.

I'm only surprised she shot
Signor Mussolini

given the fact that she repeatedly
declared the desire

to assassinate the Pope.

Miss Constance Gibson arrived two
days ago to represent the family.

We have succeeded in inducing Ferry,

one of the leading pathological
lawyers in Rome,

to undertake Violet Gibson's case.

Miss Gibson was having such an
awkward time here

that she needed police protection.

No hotel wished to give her
accommodation,..

He insists on wearing a kilt
on all occasions

and as this particularity has been
signalled in the press,

he would run serious risk of being
assaulted in the street.

No one will know my judgement
except myself.

I will be silent.

I love the Italians and hope they
will allow me to stay with them

and I hope everyone will be
patient with me.

Violet tries to get her... requests
her checkbook from the convent

and the inquiry reveals that she has
an awful amount of money,

a lot of money in her account and
this must have been some part

of a plot because why would she need
thousands of pounds in today's terms

in her account unless it were to
promote some kind of

conspiracy or something?

And she said, "No, no, no," she
writes an incredibly rational letter

saying, "Well no, obviously not.
It's what we call credit.

I have 100 pounds a week on credit

but it doesn't mean I'm going to
spend 100 pounds a week."

And Pennetta looks and that and
says, you know, to himself

In fact he notes it.

"These are not the words of a woman
who is insane.

This is completely lucid and
completely practical.

She has, I think, mounting evidence,

circumstantial that suggests to him
that she's been part of a plot

and the more I think about it the
more I think she was.

She's carrying that stone wrapped in
a leather glove in her pocket

when she goes to Campidoglio.

She's got the pistol and she's
got the stone.

Would you think of that?

I don't know, I wouldn't.

I think that sounds like someone
with some sort of vaguely

professional idea of how to
assassinate someone

might have told her that.

Where did she go?

Who did she meet?

Who are her accomplices?

Do you expect me to believe
this lady, this Irish lady,

this aristocrat dreamed this up
all by herself?

She went and got a gun all by
herself

and there was no one behind her
pulling the strings?

Who were they? Who are they?

You will of course be subject
to the full rigours of the law.

I am setting it out what it is
we want to know.

You will get her to give a full
account of herself.

Write her a letter. Is that clear?

(BELL RINGING/FLAG WAVING IN WIND)

Do you remember that you once asked
me that I loved Rome more than you?

You must know that at this moment
nothing interests me more

beyond helping you, if I am able.

I'm taking this opportunity
to ask you in the name of God

that when you next see the
magistrate,

you are perfectly frank and answer
all the questions he puts to you.

This is in your interests
and for your own good.

Miss Gibson, look at you.

Miss McGrath!
How are you?

These are for you. How are you?

What are you doing here in Rome?
And how did you afford the trip?

Don't worry, Miss Gibson,
the Italian consul in Dublin,

they offered to pay for a first
class return ticket.

The Italian consul?

The other day I met with your sister
Frances, Mrs. Bolton,

at her home in Dublin.

She's very concerned about you.

Frances?

Concerned? I doubt that.

And your dear friend Enid,
she has been...

She has been writing and asking
about you.

How is Enid?

She's good but she's very worried
about you.

Everybody is worried about you.
Look at your face.

I hate this place.

It does get terribly lonely.

Are you eating?
Are you eating properly?

The food here is terrible.

The visit is over. Andiamo!

No I have to...

Please come back again soon,
Miss McGrath.

I will, I promise. I promise.
Come back soon.

She said to the mother superior,
I think, at St. Brigida,

before she set... a few days before
she set out to kill Mussolini,

she said, "I've been asked by
several people, four people,

have told me to do it but I don't
know if I'm up to the task;

I don't know if I'm up to it."

Why did I shoot Mussolini?

Well, I did it for love.

When I arrived in Rome in 1924,..

..I learnt to my great sadness
that Geovanni,

Geovanni Colonna, Duca di Cesarò,..

..was married.

I wanted to do something to
impress him.

So, I had heard that he had become
an opponent of the fascist regime,

so I decided to kill Mussolini.

Of course he knew nothing of my
plans.

That's all I'm prepared to say
at the moment.

I'm tired and I would like
to return to my cell.

She plays poor Pennetta and the
others who come to interrogate her.

"Who, me? Are you sure? I shot
Mussolini? I don't think so."

And the next day she's saying, "Ah,
yeah, no, I did, I did. I did it.

Why? I did it for the glory of God."

"Did you have any accomplices?"

"I did, I did," she'd say,

I had, I had all the great saints
who've died guiding me.

I met Geovanni, the Duke...

He approached me and said,
"Great things tomorrow".

And then she writes at some point
to her friend Enid Dinnis,

she does write a letter saying,

"I'm so glad God gave me an Irish
tongue...

..to lead them all a merry dance.

Viva Mussolini! Viva Mussolini!

It is against the will of God that
Mussolini should continue to exist.

At this point she got her room and
it's a rather nice

newly opened asylum up in the hills
above Rome

and allowed a certain degree
of freedom.

She said to one of the nuns there
that she had people

who had helped her, but that she
would always remain silent about it

so as not to compromise them.

We have the preliminary details.

Name: Violet Albina Gibson.

Una metro, cinquantasette
centimetri.

Left breast amputation.

She'd subjected to, I'd say,
a really intrusive -

given the context - examination.

What could it possibly have
justified?

Finding the seat of her hysteria,
literally, touching her womb?

This is something I find very
uncomfortable talking about

and I find incredibly uncomfortable
reading the details

of this vaginal examination.

The hymen is not intact.

It permits with ease the
introduction

of two exploratory fingers.

The uterus is retroverted.

Ovaries normal.

There is no pathological secretion
of the urethra

even after it is squeezed.

I think for a woman who was so
resolutely private

and who was effectively living
as a celibate -

although she'd had lovers
when she was younger -

this must have been... this must
have felt like a punishment.

It must have been very humiliating

and I think that's what it was
intended to be.

When Lucetti misses, she confides to
the same nun after that.

She says that it was a pity
he missed.

The nun then reports of her to the
investigating magistrate

and he demands she be taken straight
back to prison.

She knows she's made a mistake
because she's then

in floods of tears for days
afterwards and really shaky.

Violet's eyes, which were shown in
close-up

in newspapers all over the world,
including the Daily Mail, were,

without comment, were simply
presented as evidence

of a depraved personality of a mad
woman with malicious intent.

It's not surprising Ferri comes up
with this defence of lucid insanity.

Basically a deal was done.

Ferri, who I'm sure enjoyed going
through the motions

because Violet Gibson was a
fascinating objective study

as was Mussolini who he'd also
studied,

Ferri was given the nod that
Mussolini wanted this over with

as soon as possible and he wanted
Violet spirited out of the country.

This coincides with perfect timing
with Winston Churchill -

then chancellor's - visit to Rome
to meet Mussolini

and of course Churchill comes out
and gives Mussolini

the great bona fides of the
recuperative leech

who will draw the Bolshevik threat
away from Italy

and by implication,
the rest of the free world.

The Italian bit of this story ends
with this much quieter

piece of theatre but it is
nonetheless a piece of theatre.

When, essentially, people in
disguise as civilians

but are in fact Violet's future
custodians,

they're nurses and attendants from
St. Andrew's Lunatic Asylum

and plainclothes policemen,
you know,

she's surrounded by people who then
spirit her onto this train

and I'm absolutely sure she had
no idea who they were

other than he own sister
Constance.

Can you believe it, Constance?

I'm going home.

I won't be staying here long.

I will be returning to Italy

as soon as possible.

Why?

To shoot Mussolini.

Miss Gibson, I concur with my
colleague.

You behaviour is hysterical

and suspicious, unbalanced
and unreliable.

Doctor! My behaviour since the
incident...

Even unstable and dangerous.

My behaviour since the incident,
all of it,

has been conducted with the view to
preparing my defence of insanity

after I attacked Mussolini.

I'm sorry. I cannot see it.
That is not my diagnosis.

(BIRDS CHIRPING/LEAVES BLOWING)

(STEPS CREAKING)

And of course there's the reveal,
isn't there?

There's the reveal when she's
finally dumped at St. Andrew's.

Is that when the nurses take
their civvies off?

I don't know, they already changed
into their uniforms

and their starched collars.
I'm not sure.

It's a great deception

that get's her back without any

sort of protest.

But it's a story full of
theatricality.

Some of it hysterical and
melodramatic

and other a little bit more subtle
and oblique and causes one to think

more about the destiny of the
protagonist of this story.

(HEAVY BREATHING)

The world feels less and less
like a home.

Good morning, Miss Gibson.

Good morning, Miss Clarke.

It's a beautiful day, Miss Gibson.

I heard the blackbirds singing on my
way over this morning.

I was thinking about you.

You have such an extraordinary way
with the birds.

Maybe you can go to the garden
today.

I do hope so, Miss Clarke.

This room is so stuffy at night.

It's bad for my chest.

I have had tuberculosis, you know.

I need fresh air.

I'm going to write to Dr. Tennent
to ask him

that my windows be left unlocked at
night as they were previously.

Even the junior nurses have their
windows unlocked at night.

And why not I?

Who am methodical and careful.

I'll see what I can do, Miss Gibson.
Thank you, my dear.

"I was alone with her for an hour
and a half and I wondered

suppose she was to attack me or my
sister Lady Bolton,

seize our coats and hats,

whether or not it would have been
perfectly easy for her to walk out."

Out!

Out!

Devil!

Out!

Get out!

It's done!

Get out, devil!

Get out!

Get out!

Get out!
Stop, Violet.

Stop. It's only a dream.

It's the devil. It's that devil.
It's that devil.

He won't leave me alone. He won't
leave me alone.

He won't leave me alone.

My dear Constance, once again I have
seen the devil

and was so mad last night they had
to put me in a padded cell.

Will you forgive me and come
and take care of me

as I should have let you done
in the beginning.

Please be very forgiving and come
as soon as you can.

With love, from Violet Gibson.

My dearest Enid,

My protestant sisters have taken
charge of my affairs

and sent me to an asylum where there
is no chapel,

not even for Sunday Mass

and where obviously I cannot
receive communion.

I feel that I have no friends.

I don't know if there is still
anybody who loves me.

Help me to understand my situation.

(KNOCKING)

Oh my God!

(HEAVY COUGHING)

Hello?

Violet, it's me, Constance.

I don't want to see you.
I don't want to see you or anyone.

But my dear Vizzie,
I've come all the way to see you.

Just go away, Constance.
I don't want to see you.

Please!

Leave me alone.

It was Constance who would go and
visit Violet

when she was in this mental hospital
for the rest of her life.

The rest of the family didn't go
and see her.

Possible one sister visited once.

But it was Constance who went I
think every month to see her

and was in correspondence with
the hospital all the time

and was looking out for Violet,
and doing her best for her.

She survived and at times she made
the best of it and she was calm

and at peace and was given certain
privileges.

She could go out
and feed the birds.

I think she was please she
had arrived

to the point through patient
waiting

where the birds were feeding
on her hand.

I think she was also kind of
slightly flattered

that this put her into the same kind
of iconography

as the saints, like St. Francis.

Your paper, Miss Gibson.

Thank you.

It's not really until 1935 that you
hear the British press

or the English-language press
this includes the Americans,

in 1935 when Mussolini
invades Ethiopia.

Abyssinia.

It's not really until then that it
ever enters the minds of

British diplomats that Mussolini
might be a danger to others.

"To acts of war, we will reply
with war."

In a brutal war in Abyssinia in
which mustard gas was used,

there is there, I think no doubt
that fascist imperialism was,

well let's put it this was, amongst
the worst of the variants

of European imperialism in Africa.

By 1938, the student Hitler has
(inaudible) the teacher Mussolini.

But Il Duce has given Italy's king
and queen a temporary

Ethiopian empire and together with
Hitler,

has helped spread fascism to Spain
as well.

Single-handed, he defies the League
of Nations and gets away with it.

Now all Europe trembles at the sound
of the Axis goosestep which

Il Duce in compliment to Hitler has
introduced among his own troops.

As world war seems inevitable,
England and France sign

peace commitments with the Axis
at Munich, September '38

on the Axis's own terms.

Definitely the junior part
of the Axis,

Mussolini still has a whip hand over
Chamberlain and Daladier.

He's welcomed home from Munich.

New year he overruns Albania.

A year afterward, with France
defeated and England tottering,

he takes Italy into World War II.

Dear Mr. Churchill.

In 1926, I tried to assassinate
Mussolini.

One year's internment would have
been ample for that.

But because I hung myself three
times,

and because for every two years
I can be kept here,

1000 pounds clear profit is made and
because I have a family

of the plausible cat species,
I have not been set free.

The war situation is great.

I hope you will prove yourself to be
a Prime Minister

equal to dealing with it,

and so, easing the gratitude
of the whole world.

Yours sincerely, Violet Gibson.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

It's so wonderful to get out
into the fresh air.

Even if I'm confined to this garden.

I don't think anyone cares about me.

I've been tossed aside.

Oh, Vizzie.
You know that's not true.

In all these years Willie never came
to visit me.

And I wasn't allowed to go to his
funeral either.

And as for the others...
But I come to visit.

I do so care about you, Vizzie.

I know you care.

But in a strange way.

Why can't I go to a convent where I
can be looked after

and where I can find peace?

Oh, Vizzie, please don't be
troubling yourself.

Good morning, Miss Gibson.

How are you this morning?

Now very well, Miss Clarke.

Oh, are you ill?

No...

My nephew has taken on
responsibility for my affairs.

And it seems my family can no longer
afford for me

to stay in a private room.

With my own nurse.

And I may need to move to the
dormitory.

I am sorry to have to tell you...

..that I will be leaving this
hospital soon

to take up another position.

Oh no.

More bad news.

I will miss you.

You have been very kind to me.

You are indeed a special woman.

I should not be locked up and buried
alive in this evil place.

Miss Gibson, this is not
an evil place.

You are not evil.

But this place is.

Hitler's boyfriend, the deflated
Mussolini was carted off

to Germany by plane following his
rescue by Nazi paratroops.

Captured enemy films show how after
being kept a prisoner

in Central Italy he was whisked off
to become a Nazi stooge.

At Hitler's headquarters the comedy
of errors reached a peak

of buffoonery as Muso tried oh so
hard to look his former self

in front of Mr. Schicklgruber.

A kiss for papa.

Mussolini's son who is with the
Nazis held back on a crack

about how well he thought he looked
and the fraudulent head

of a fake fascist regime shook hands
with Ribbentrop.

What a parody of those former
meetings.

One arrogant career which has hit
the ignominious bottom.

Yes, there you have them: Hitler,
Ribbentrop and the flat tyre.

However, the Germans occupied Italy
down to Rome

and remained in possession and so
the last two years of the war

the Allies slogged there way up
Italy and behind the lines

an Italian civil war broke out
between the partisans,

the resistance and the supporters of
the fascist regime.

The fascist and his mistress

are displayed.

The degraded Duce is spurned in
death by raging people

and the place from which he launched
the march on Rome.

The world will not forget the life
and death of Benito Mussolini,

the strutting, pompous braggard.

Now the one time Duce has been
executed and his body spat upon

by his countrymen.

An example other war criminals
will not overlook.

He's fleeing from the partisans who
will eventually shoot him

and hang him and Clara like
prosciuttos at the petrol station

in Milan.

In his bag he's carrying files
relating to the Violet Gibson case,

which I can only assume the only use
of that would be as

a bargaining chip to say
"I did you guys a favour."

She wanted to go to a convent,
somewhere by the coast.

She wasn't fit enough to jump over
walls and assassinate people.

She was no risk to anybody.

Of course she wasn't.

And of course those wishes
were never granted.

One remembers that what seems long,
long ago,

people spoke well of one
and loved one,

whereas in these days one is held
is such derision

that it requires a strong act of
faith to believe

that anyone ever did love one.

(STRUGGLED BREATHING)

I found these letters that she'd
written to the Queen,

to other notables,
anyone she could think of,

mentioning her father, mentioning
her time at court

when she was a young woman trying to
use the social credentials

that she shared actually and had
been so oppressive to her,

now to trying to use them to get...
secure her release.

But the devastating thing is if the
letters are still in the file

in the envelopes with the stamp on,
they were never sent.

She really was silenced and buried
alive.

The end of this black and white
movies,

turning into colour, finished,..

I'm happy that it's not.

Because I think in oblique
and sometimes...

..troubling ways,
the story of Violet,

the question of her madness and/or
at the same time sanity...

..asks us to present different ways
into a much bigger history

of violence, of fascism,
of international politics,

of politicking as some kind of
grand parlour game.

These smaller characters who get
these marginal parts

and appropriate to marginal parts
are then marginalised.

They do actually shine and sparkle
in the margins

and tell you something the official
histories have left out,

which I think is of value.

I think her life is of value
and needs to be...

That needs to be recovered.

For her but for us, for now.

Because it tells us a lot of what's
going on now.