Dorothy Macardle (2 February 1889, in Dundalk – 23 December 1958, in Drogheda) was an Irish writer, novelist, playwright, journalist and non-academic historian. Associated throughout her life with Irish republicanism, she was a founding member of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and was considered to be closely aligned with Eamon de Valera until her death, although she was vocal critic of how women were represented in the 1937 constitution created by Fianna Fáil. Her book, The Irish Republic, is one of the more frequently cited narrative accounts of the Irish War of Independence and its aftermath, particularly for its exposition of the anti-treaty viewpoint.
Early life
Dorothy Macardle (alternatively spelled McArdle) was born in Dundalk, Ireland, in 1889 into a wealthy brewing family famous for their Macardle's Ale. Her father was Sir Thomas Callan Macardle, a Catholic who supported home rule in Ireland while her mother was Lucy "Minnie" Macardle, who came from an English Anglican background and was a Unionist in her politics. Lucy's family was intertwineded with the British Army; indeed her uncle was the General William Hicks. Dorothy and her siblings were raised Roman Catholic, but their mother tried to instil in them anglophilia and love of the British Empire. Dorothy received her secondary education in Alexandra College, Dublina school under the management of the Church of Irelandand later attended University College, Dublin. Upon graduating, she returned to teach English at Alexandra. It was as a student at Alexandra that Macardle first encountered Irish cultural nationalism, and this was further developed by her first experiences of Dublin's slums, which led her to question if a self-governing Ireland could manage its affairs better than the United Kingdom could.
Between 1914 and 1916, Macardle lived and worked in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire in England. There, her encounters with upper-class English people who held Ireland in contempt and called for it to be repressed further hardened her developing Irish nationalist views.
Upon the outbreak of World War I, Macardle supported the allies as did the rest of her family; her father led the County Louth recruiting committee while two of her brothers volunteered for service. Thomas Macardle, who supported the Irish Parliamentary Party and John Redmond, followed their belief that Irish service in the British army during the war would ensure the granting of home rule following the war. Dorthoy's brother, Lieutenant Kenneth Callan Macardle, was killed at the Battle of the Somme while another brother Major John Ross Macardle managed to survive the war and earn a Military Cross.
Irish revolutionary period
Irish War of Independence
Macardle was a member of the Gaelic League and later joined both Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan in 1917. In 1918 Macardle was arrested by the RIC while teaching at Alexandra.
On 19 January 1919, Macardle was in the public gallery for the inaugural meeting of the First Dáil and witnessed it declare unilateral independence from the United Kingdom, which would ultimately be the catalyst for the Irish War of Independence.
By 1919 Macardle had befriended Maud Gonne MacBride, the widow of the 1916 Easter Rising participant John MacBride, and together the two worked at the Irish White Cross, attending to those injured in the war. It was during this period Macardle also became a propagandist for the nationalist side.
In December 1920, Macardle travelled to London to meet with Margot Asquith, the wife of the former British prime minister HH Asquith, hoping to establish a line of communication between the Irish and British governments. It was during this trip that Macardle came into contact with Charlotte Despard, sister of the Viceroy of Ireland Lord French. Despard had taken the pro-Irish side in the war and returned with Macardle to Dublin.
Irish Civil War
Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty in December 1921, Macardle took the anti-treaty side in the ensuing Irish Civil War. Alongside Gonne MacBride and Despard, she helped found the Women Prisoners' Defence League, which campaigned and advocated for republicans imprisoned by the newly established Irish Free State government. It was also during this same time that she began working alongside Erskine Childers in writing for anti-treaty publications An Phoblacht and Irish Freedom.