OppositionpoetCatholic opponent of the colonial warfounder of the National Commission for Aid to Political Prisonersdeputy in the Constituent Assembly (PS)
Born
6 November 1919, Porto
Died
2 July 2004, Lisbon
A poet. She lived in Graça from 1951 until her death, wrote the “Cantata da Paz” (Cantata of Peace) for the São Domingos vigil, helped found the committee for aid to political prisoners and was a deputy in the Constituent Assembly. “This is the dawn I was waiting for” (Esta é a madrugada que eu esperava) is hers.
She was born in Porto on 6 November 1919. In 1951 she moved with her family to Lisbon, to the 1st floor of no. 57 Travessa das Mónicas, in Graça, where she lived until her death.21
She supported Humberto Delgado’s candidacy and signed the Manifesto of the 101, by Catholics against the colonial war and against the Church’s support for Salazar. She was a founder and member of the national committee for aid to political prisoners; before 25 April she chaired the Centro Nacional de Cultura (National Culture Centre) and the general assembly of the Portuguese Writers’ Association.14 The lines “We see, we hear and we read / We cannot ignore” (Vemos, ouvimos e lemos / Não podemos ignorar), from the “Cantata da Paz” (Cantata of Peace), were written for the gathering of Catholics in the Church of São Domingos on 1 January 1969.3 That year she was a CEUD candidate in the elections to the National Assembly.4
About 25 April she wrote the poem that has remained the poem of the Revolution: “This is the dawn I was waiting for / The first day whole and clean” (Esta é a madrugada que eu esperava / O dia inicial inteiro e limpo).9 In 1975 she was elected to the Constituent Assembly for the Porto constituency, on a Socialist Party list.1 Of the 27 women who held seats in the Constituent Assembly, she was the only one to chair a committee — the one that drafted the preamble of the Constitution.57
In 1999 she was the first Portuguese woman to receive the Camões Prize. She died on 2 July 2004, aged 84; ten years later, on 2 July 2014, she was moved to the National Pantheon.1
From the archives
In other archives
These can only be viewed on each archive’s own website.
An architect and a figure among the progressive Catholics, he took part in the peace vigil at São Domingos (1968–1969) and was one of the organisers of the Capela do Rato vigil (1972). Arrested by the DGS in 1970, after the Rato vigil and at the end of 1973, he only left Caxias with 25 April.
Chosen by the captains as a prestigious leader, he was a member of the National Salvation Junta, succeeded Spínola as President in September 1974, declared a state of siege on 25 November 1975 and promulgated the 1976 Constitution.
An architect and progressive Catholic, she spoke on housing at the Opposition Congress in Aveiro and was detained by the PIDE in 1973. A co-founder of the Botequim and a deputy in the Constituent Assembly, in 1982 she gave up her seat in order to vote, against her parliamentary group, for an amnesty for political prisoners.
An underground communist activist, she was arrested in 1959 and sentenced to eight years of major imprisonment plus security measures, which she served in Caxias. A deputy from the Constituent Assembly onwards, she chaired the Parliamentary Committee on the Status of Women from 1983 to 1985.
A medical student, she was the first woman to speak at a general assembly in the 1962 academic crisis; she later founded the Revolutionary Brigades, which attacked the machinery of the colonial war. A doctor and professor, she is the author of the first study on obesity in Portugal.
A naval officer and member of the National Salvation Junta, he headed the Sixth Provisional Government and was held captive in his official residence, at São Bento, during the siege by construction workers in November 1975.
Notes on the sources4
The name of the committee for aid to political prisoners: “Comissão Nacional de Apoio aos Presos Políticos” (Assembly of the Republic) or Comissão Nacional de Socorro aos Presos Políticos, CNSPP (Eloísa Aragão).
The book in which the poem “25 de Abril” was first published (probably “O Nome das Coisas”, 1977, which appears in the Assembly of the Republic’s bibliography).
Whether she was at the Capela do Rato vigil (the sources differ).
The place of death: the sources say she lived on Travessa das Mónicas until her death, without saying where she died.
Do you know more, or do you have a document? Tell us.
6Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. RTP – Memórias da Revolução (textos de Aniceto Afonso, Carlos Matos Gomes e Maria Inácia Rezola) — consulted on 2 October 2026
7A constituinte. Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril — consulted on 2 October 2026
