Episode 1 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution with Dr Susan Cahill

The National Library of Ireland

In Episode 1 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution Dr Susan Cahill joins us for a conversation about writer and activist Dorothy Macardle. Cahill is a writer, editor, academic, thinker, and activist. She is well known for her activism for the Repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Cahill was the first woman to tell her abortion story on the stage of the Abbey Theatre, which was subsequently published in the Irish Times. She is a former professor of Irish Studies and is currently working on her debut children’s novel The Dream Door. Her work is published in Winter Papers, and The Puritan. Cahill is represented by Kate Shaw Agency. She is from Clonakilty, Co. Cork, and is funded by the Arts Council. Following our conversation, Cahill reads from her work-in-progress debut novel. The podcast music is from “Saharakungoh” by Fehdah (https://earth-agency.com/artists/fehdah/). Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is created by Dr Julie Morrissy as part of the Poet-in-Residence programme at the National Library of Ireland, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. Sound and production are by MoLi. NLI Sources: MS 13972/1: Partial copy typescript of suggestions and corrections given by William O'Brien to Dorothy Macardle on her publication 'The Irish Republic' , circa 1937. MS 17528/4: Copy typescript letter from Dorothy McArdle to Joseph McGarrity regarding the poverty experienced in Connemara and Kerry due to famine and the imprisonment of breadwinners, and denouncing the violence of Free State troops, 1924 June 8 MS 31468: Newspaper cuttings from 'The Irish Press' of 'The great story of the Rising: Easter Week day by day' by Dorothy Macardle, 1933 Apr. 17-22 MS 41480/2/8: Letter from Lily O'Brennan, 22 Hans Place S.W., to Áine Ceannt regarding her personal and social life, 1921 November 8 MS 41,480/4/14: Letter from Dorothy Macardle to Áine Ceannt thanking her for some information that she could not have gotten anywhere else, 1935 November 25 MS 41,491/3/4: Postcard from Dorothy Macardle to Lily O'Brennan wishing her a happy Christmas and New Year, 1924 December MS 50700/1: Letter from Dorothy McArdle to Norman Collins, Victor Gollancz Ltd., about publishing Maud Gonne's memoirs, with letters from Victor Gollancz Ltd. to McArdle, 1936 & 1937 MS 50246/5/1: Copy of account of the Easter Rising by Elizabeth O'Farrell [MS 50,246/5/1], [undated] NPA POLF234: Pearse's Surrender [graphic] Additional References / Further Reading Bourke, Angela, et al. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Volume V: Irish Women's Writings and Traditions. Cork University Press, 2002, pp. 997-1000. Boland, Eavan. A Kind of Scar: The Woman Poet in a National Tradition. Attic Press, 1989, p. 12. Coen, Lisa. “Waking the Feminists and Disturbing the Old Ghosts: The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle”. Writing.ie, 16 Nov. 2015, https://www.writing.ie/interviews/stage-screen/waking-the-feminists-and-disturbing-old-ghosts-the-uninvited-by-dorothy-mcardle/ Gillis, Liz. Women of the Irish Revolution. Mercier Press, 2016, p. 154. Macardle, Dorothy. “The Portrait of Roisín Dhu”. Earth-Bound: Nine Stories of Ireland. Harrigan Press, 1924, pp. 90-101. Meaney, Gerardine, Mary O’Dowd, and Bernadette Whelan. “Sexual and Aesthetic Dissidences: Women and the Gate Theatre, 1929-60. Reading the Irish Woman: Studies in Cultural Encounters and Exchange, 1714-1960, Liverpool UP, pp. 196-217. Maume, Patrick. “Macardle, Dorothy Margaret”. Dictionary of Irish Biography, Oct. 2009, https://www.dib.ie/biography/macardle-dorothy-margaret-a5097 Short, Constance. “It is time to celebrate the life of remarkable Dundalk woman Dorothy Macardle”. Dundalk Democrat, 18 Dec. 2016, https://www.dundalkdemocrat.ie/news/home/228161/it-is-time-to-celebrate-the-life-of-remarkable-dundalk-woman-dorothy-macardle.html Smith, Nadia Clare. Dorothy Macardle: A Life. Woodfield Press, 2007.