Aosdána Playwright Margaretta D'Arcy reads in Galway

galway | arts and media | event notice Thursday June 28, 2007 12:59 by Fred Johnston, Manager - Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoiri Chaitlín Maud, westernwriters at eircom dot net 34 Nuns Island, Galway 091.533594

August 16th reading date in Galway.

Renowned activist and playwright Margarette D'Arcy will read for the Western Writers' Centre at The Imperial Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway, on Thursday, August 16th, starting at 8pm. Admission is €8 and €5

Now in her 74th year, Margaretta D'Arcy lives in Galway and is known as a playwright and political activist; she has been to jail twice over the treatment of Republican women prisoners in the North of Ireland: in Armagh, 1980, she joined the republican women’s no-wash protest. She was also jailed three times in Holloway for anti-war activities at Greenham Common.

As well as being a playwright (e.g. 'The Non-Stop Connolly Show, 'lasting twenty-six-and-a-half hours at Liberty Hall, Dublin in 1975), she has carried out innovative experiments with video, radio and street-happenings to extend the boundaries of what is known as art. Working primarily with women, she used her house to present “domestic art” by setting up a pirate radio station, deliberately breaking the then draconian censorship laws.

Her video-making has been of an archival type, recording women’s lives and struggles, also domestic and neighbourhood projects such as an unedited 11-hour video of the people’s lives in the street where she lives. Her camera and radio have been her means to break down barriers and remove women’s fear of technology. An earlier, edited, film, Circus Exposé, 1986, was one of the first video-diaries, dealing with her 2-month sit-out on the steps of the Arts Council. 'Big Plane Small Axe: the Mis-trials of Mary Kelly,' has been shown at various film festivals and won 2nd Prize in the best Feature Documentary category at the Galway Film Fleadh, 2005. Shell Hell (2005) is a 10-minute campaign video on behalf of Shell-to-Sea. She is a member of Aosdána and her work is included in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Women Writers.

Her book 'Loose Theatre, Memoirs of a Guerrilla Theatre Activist,' includes diaries of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. Her latest film, Yellow Gate Women, deals with the same subject and is to be shown at this year’s Galway Film Fleadh.