A bullet from the Dublin-born woman’s gun grazed the dictator’s nose.
TG4 is airing a documentary on Wednesday night (22 September) about Irish woman Violet Gibson who attempted to assassinate Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in 1926.
Born in Dublin and daughter of the Lord Chancellor to Ireland, Gibson shot the dictator as he walked among the crowd in the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome after delivering a speech.
Firing at point-blank range, Mussolini moved his head at that moment and the shot just grazed his nose. When Gibson tried again to shoot the leader, the gun misfired.
Almost lynched on the spot by an angry mob, police intervened and took her away for questioning before she was declared insane by both the Italian and British authorities.
Gibson then spent the last 30 years of her life in psychiatric hospitals.
Following a premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival in 2020, TG4 is airing an Irish language version of the documentary Violet Gibson: The Irish Woman who Shot Mussolini about the extraordinary true story.
Through a mixture of historical newsreel footage and dramatic reenactments featuring Irish actress Olwen Fouéré (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald), the film looks at how Gibson almost changed the course of history and the enormous personal price she paid.
Violet Gibson: An tÉireannach Mná a Lámhach Mussolini airs on TG4 at 9.30pm on Wednesday. You can see a clip from the documentary below.
Clip via TG4
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