Margaretta Ruth D'Arcy is an Irish actress, writer, playwright, and activist. D'Arcy has been a member of Aosdána since its inauguration and is known for addressing Irish nationalism, civil liberties, and women's rights in her work. 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.
Family and theatrical life
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. Married in 1957 to English playwright and author John Arden, they frequently collaborated. They settled in Galway and established the Galway Theatre Workshop in 1976. The couple had five sons, one of whom predeceased his mother. The couple wrote a number of stage pieces and improvisational works for amateur and student players, including The Happy Haven 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, and Galway's Pirate Women: A Global Trawl.
Activism
As an activist, in 1961, D'Arcy joined the anti-nuclear Committee of 100, led by Bertrand Russell. Jailed in Armagh Prison in Northern Ireland, her book Tell Them Everything tells the story of her time during the Armagh and H-Block protests. 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.
Yellow Gate Women, 2007, shown at the 'Galway Film Fleadh' and Independent International Video & Film Festival .
Shell Hell, co-directed by Finn Arden, 2005, shown at Galway Arts Festival, the 'Stranger than Fiction Festival' at the IFC and the Human Rights Documentary Festival.
