The Government has announced a new scheme for women artists, which will see awards of up to €100,000 made available.
The new Markievicz bursaries will be made up of five annual awards of €20,000.
They will be presented each year to up to five artists or writers - either individual artists working alone or in collaboration with others.
The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht will partner with the Arts Council on governance and administration of the scheme.
It will open for submissions from mid-January to mid-February, with bursaries to be awarded in May 2019.
The scheme will be available via a public call to female artists working in all genres supported by the Arts Council.
One of the bursaries each year will also be assigned to an artist working in the Gaeltacht and through the medium of the Irish language.
Minister Josepha Madigan (centre) launches the Markievicz bursaries at The National Gallery in Dublin | Image: Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
Culture Minister Josepha Madigan said: "On this the 100th anniversary of the enactment of legislation to allow women to stand in general elections, I am pleased to announce a new scheme that both honours Countess Constance de Markievicz - herself an artist - and provides support for female artists from all backgrounds and genres".
"Today is particularly pleasing given the importance of culture, heritage and the Irish language to this Government.
"The Taoiseach has put on the record a very public commitment to double spending on arts and culture by 2025.
"Today is yet another important step along this road."
Countess Constance de Markievicz was the only woman, of a total of 17 women candidates in Ireland and Britain, to be elected in the landmark general election of December 1918.
The date of this launch is significant, as it is the centenary of the passage of a significant piece of legislation by the Westminster parliament in 1918 that allowed women to stand for election in parliamentary elections for the first time and on a fully equal footing with men.
This facilitated her candidacy in Dublin and that of her Sinn Féin colleague, Winifred Carney, in Belfast.
