Carnation Revolution, who Celeste Caeiro was and why she distributed the flowers to the military. Her granddaughter: “The politicians have forgotten about her”

The lady of the carnations is 91 years old and these days lives in Alcobaça, in the house of her daughter and granddaughter. Celeste Caeiro entered history, not only Portuguese, with the simple gesture of giving a flower to a soldier on 25 April 1974 in Rossio square, in the heart of Lisbon. She worked in a […]

There lady of the carnations He is 91 years old and these days lives in Alcobaçain the home of his daughter and granddaughter. Celeste Caeiro she entered history, not only Portuguese, with the simple gesture of giving a flower to a soldier April 25, 1974 in Rossio square, in the heart of Lisbon. She worked in a restaurant that was supposed to organize a party that day to celebrate its first year of business: she took care of cleaning and was in charge of the cloakroom. The owner had asked her to buy carnations to give them to the women who would participate in the joyful occasion.

The party was canceled because it had broken out Revolution, but she was ordered to go and collect the flowers to prevent them from being ruined: “Take them home, give them to your family”. Celeste, intrigued by the strange movements in the streets of Lisbon, after picking up the carnations he went to see what was happening. A soldier he asked her for a cigarette. She replied that she didn’t smoke. The only thing she could give the soldier was a carnation. The soldier accepted the offering and placed the flower in the barrel of his rifle. Celeste began to distribute more carnations and the soldiers imitated their colleague’s gesture. Other women followed Celeste’s example. The Portuguese uprising of April 25 had found her symbol and her name: a Revoluçao dos Cravosthe Carnation Revolution.

Celeste is the lady dos Cravos. Spanish mother, father who abandoned the family when she was just born, she worked for forty-four years doing the seamstressthe waitress and thebaggage handler. Petite, just over one and a half meters tall, she too was abandoned by her husband. She raised her daughter alone. In the 1988 lost his house, destroyed by a fire in the Chiado neighborhood. The fire also burned the photographs of that memorable day. Today she lives on a pension of just over 400 euros. A small addition raises the figure to five hundred. With two thirds she pays the rent of the house in Lisbon. Celeste has age-related ailments, walking problems, difficulty speaking and she doesn’t see very well, but she is shiny and, above all, embittered.

The grandson Carolina, 23 years old, law student, explains the reasons for her disillusionment: “My grandmother made a gesture that went down in history, recognized throughout the world, but Portuguese politicians forgot about her. She didn’t have a street named after her, not even a commemorative plaque. We return to talking about Celeste Caeiro when she returns on April 25th, but on the twenty-sixth, the curtain falls promptly. Yet, the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, knows my grandmother. In recent days there has been talk about her again because it is the fiftieth anniversary of the carnation revolution. Those carnations that a gesture from my grandmother made symbol of the twenty-fifth of April and the end of the dictatorship, an icon of a peaceful revolution. We were not invited to official celebrations and we don’t know if we will go to Lisbon. My grandmother really is embittered for how it has been treated in recent years.”

The Alentejo poetess Rosa Guerreiro Dias dedicated a poem to Celeste Caeiro, published in 1999. It’s called Heavenly in flower. “…You were the jaryou were the land where the carnation bloomed and so you tamed the war, one war that didn’t bleed… with this gesture you brought the glory to a country, you are not just any woman… you are just a Portuguese woman, one among many thousands, a woman of the April carnations.” The building where the Sir restaurant where Celeste worked was renovated in 2020. Instead of the restaurant, there is now an office. In one of the walls, it was engraved the story of Celeste Caeiroa Portuguese woman holding a carnation he called a revolution.