Margaretta D'Arcy

Margaretta Ruth D'Arcy (born 14 June 1934, London) is an Irish actress, writer, playwright, and activist.

D'Arcy has been a member of the Irish association of artists, known as Aosdána, since its inauguration and is known for addressing Irish nationalism, civil liberties, and women's rights in her work.

She was married in 1957 to English playwright and author John Arden, and they frequently collaborated.

The couple wrote a number of stage pieces and improvisational works for amateur and student players, including The Happy Haven (1960) and The Workhouse Donkey.

She has written and produced many plays, including The Non-Stop Connolly Show.

D'Arcy has also written a number of books, including Tell Them Everything, Awkward Corners (with John Arden), and Galway's Pirate Women: A Global Trawl.

As an activist, in 1961, D'Arcy joined the anti-nuclear Committee of 100, led by Bertrand Russell.

They settled in Galway and established the Galway Theatre Workshop in 1976.

The couple had five sons, one of whom predeceased his mother.

In 1981 her peace-activism resulted in her incarceration in Armagh Jail, after defacing a wall at the Ulster Museum.

Her book Tell Them Everything tells the story of her time during the Armagh and H-Block dirty protests and was one of the earliest accounts about the Armagh women, their Republicanism and imprisonment.

D'Arcy also directed Yellow Gate Women, a film about the attempts by women of Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp to outwit the British and United States Military at RAF Greenham Common with bolt cutters and legal challenges.

Challenging censorship since 1987, she ran a women's kitchen pirate-radio from her home in Galway.

In 2011, D'Arcy refused to stand for a minute's silence to honor a PSNI officer Ronan Kerr, killed by dissident republicans, at an Aosdana meeting.

Her actions were deliberate, she told media afterwards, which attracted fierce criticism of her perceived support for armed republican groups in Northern Ireland.

Along with Niall Farrell, she was arrested in October 2012 for scaling the perimeter fence of Shannon Airport, in protest at the use of the airport as a stopover for US military flights.

Her books include;

Her plays include;

Plays devised as group productions include;

Plays written in collaboration with John Arden include;

Films as a director and those produced by Women in Media & Entertainment;

In 2014, she was imprisoned after she refused to sign a bond saying that she wouldn't trespass on non-public parts of Shannon Airport.

Her arrest was a consequence of trespassing on airport property during protests over United States military stopovers at Shannon Airport.

She was born in London to a Russian Jewish mother and an Irish Catholic father.

D'Arcy worked in small theatres in Dublin from the age of fifteen and later became an actress.