- D'Arcy's
parents' mixed marriage, between a freedom-fighter in the Old-IRA and
a London-Jewish student of Russian emigre origins.
- D'Arcy's early
years of theatre in the colourful bohemian climate of Brendan Behan's
Dublin with its small theatre-clubs and acting-companies.
- Her flight
to London to involve herself in the heady days of the Royal Court Theatre
and the associated political activism of the 1950s.
- Her courtship
of a Yorkshire virgin, the then unknown playwright John Arden.
- Their eventual
marriage and creative partnership.
- Their turbulent
life together, overcoming tragedy after the death of their firstborn
son.
- Four more
sons; bankrupcy, libel actions, jail, and professional isolation due
to the war in the North of Ireland and the censoship and disinformation
it brought with it.
Other Books by Margaretta D'Arcy
Tell Them Everything (Pluto Press, London, 1981) Alternative Best-seller, London 1981.
"In 1980 Margaretta D'Arcy spent three months in Armagh prison. Her account is always rivetting to read ... her witty insights into her own emotional temperament." (Time Out)
Awkward Corners (Methuen, London, 1988.)
"Always provocative. Arden and D'Arcy are two of the most creative people working in theatre today."
(Galway Advertiser)
Galway's Pirate Women, a Global Trawl (Women's Pirate Press, Galway, 1996)
"What else but a gutsy, variegated, significant and amusing book could be expected of playwright Margaretta? ... Galway's feminist pirate radio which for ten years now has done everything it shouldn't.""D'Arcy casts a caustic glance around her milieu of protest and playmaking, whether at her fellow authors in the Theatre Writers' Union or the bitter divisions of Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. She never loses her commitment to the theatre as a tool for activism and change."
For a list of published plays go to www.methuen.co.uk
also to ProQuest's Twentieth-Century Drama Database, www.proquest.co.uk
