Life
1934- ; b. London; leading actress of Ulster Group Theatre appearing under
directorship of Harold Goldblatt in roles such as The Constant Wife
by Somerset Maugham and a stage adaption of Henry James’s Washington
Square; companion and artistic collaborator of John Arden; lived in
Ireland except between 1953 and 1961; appeared in Gerard McLarnon’s
The Bonefire, a play erroneously made the subject of sectarian
controversy, Belfast Opera House, Aug. 1958; appeared in first performance
of Meldon’s Aisling, produced by his wife (1953); set up radio
station in terraced house in Galway, 1987, mostly supporting women’s
viewpoints; imprisoned for expressions of hostility to British policy
in Ireland after a poetry reading at the Ulster Museum, 1978; engages
in ‘Duchas na Saoirse (Artists for Freedom)’. DIL OCIL
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Works
Prose, with John Arden, Tell them
Everything (London: Methuen 1961), cultural and political essays.
Plays, The Pinprick of History; Vandaleur’s Folly; Women’s voices from W. of Ireland; Prison-voice of Countess Markievicz.
Group productions, Muggins is a Martyr; The Vietnam War-game; 200 Years of Labour; The Mongrel Fox; No Room at the Inn; Mary’s Name; Seán O’Scrúdú; Silence.
Dramatic collaborations with John Arden, The Business of Good Government; The Happy Haven; Ars Longa Vita Brevis; The Royal Pardon; The Non-Stop Connolly Show; Keep the People Moving, BBC radio; Portrait of a Rebel, RTÉ television; The Manchester Enthusiasts (1984), 2-part radio play, produced by BBC and RTE (as The Ralahine Experiment 1984); Whose is the Kingdom? (1987), nine-part radio play for BBC [the above published variously by Methuen, Cassells, Pluto Press].
Miscellaneous, Galway’s Pirate Women: a global trawl (Women’s Pirate Press 1996).
German translation-performances of The Royal Pardon and The Ballygombeen Bequest (Das Erbe von Ballgombeen), also Tell Them Everything, soujourn in the Prison of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Ard Macha [Armagh] (Pluto Press). [Noticed in Jürgen Schneider and Ralf Sotscheck, Ireland: Eine Bibliographie selbständiger deutschsprachiger. (Verlag de Georg Büchner Buchhandlung 1989).
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Criticism
‘Getting Time for Adjustments’, the making of Whose is the Kingdom:
John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy interviewed over their nine-part
radio drma by Paulhadfield and Linda Henderson, in Writing Ulster (Winter
1992-93), pp.85-109.
Laura Lyons, ‘Towards Representation of Insurgency: Margaretta Darcy’s Feminist Tour of Duty’, in Timothy R. Foley, Lionel Pilkington, Sean Ryder, and Elizabeth Tilley, Gender and Colonialism (Galway UP 1996).
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Notes
Robert Greacen: ‘it is reassuring to know that when Margaretta Darcy
wins the Nobel Prize for peace, she will tell the Swedes what they can
do with their million dollars.’ (Letter to the Editor, Irish Times,
?16.10.95).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)