Prison Notebooks
Drama lecturer Sharon McArdle’s new performance: Prison Notebooks
PRISON NOTEBOOKS is based on the Civil War gaol journals of Dorothy McArdle and is presented by DMAPP* in association with An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk. It’s researched and performed by Sharon McArdle, written and directed by Declan Gorman and choreographed by Ella Clarke, with songs by Sophie Coyle.
The performance dates are 15 & 16 November 2022, for booking see https://smockalley.com/prison-notebooks/
Dorothy Macardle was an outstanding Irish woman of the 20th century whose legacy and achievements have only recently come to public attention. She was a novelist, playwright, historian and pioneering human rights campaigner. Daughter of Sir Thomas Macardle, founder of the Macardle Moore brewing enterprise in Dundalk, she rejected her family’s imperial values and became - in her own words - “an unrepentant propagandist” on behalf of the Irish Republican cause. In November 1922 she was arrested by Free State forces; her artistic and scholarly manuscripts publicly burned on a Dublin street, and imprisoned without trial in Mountjoy and later Kilmainham Gaol and the North Dublin Union. A series of handwritten diaries she kept while incarcerated have now been adapted into a remarkable solo theatre performance by Sharon McArdle and Declan Gorman. They reveal Dorothy not just as a committed political thinker but a visionary artist, whose connection to the uncanny, and meditations on time, trauma and loss place her among the literary innovators of the early 20th century. Warm, humorous portraits of fellow women prisoners, tales of ghostly apparitions and devastating accounts of deprivation and violation blend with dreamscapes and paranormal episodes in this original performance which had a symbolic performance in Kilmainham Gaol on September 22nd after almost five years of archive research and workshop exploration. Research and development of this work have been made possible with the support of Create Louth - the Arts Service of Louth Local Authorities; Fingal Arts Office; Bank of Ireland Arts Awards; Dublin City University and the Arts Council (Theatre Projects Award).
The artists wish to acknowledge the encouragement given in the early stages of their research by the Dorothy Macardle Society of Dundalk. They are also grateful to Kate Manning of the UCD archive, Elizabeth McEvoy of the National Archives, Brian Crowley of Kilmainham Gaol, Prof Eugene McNulty, Dr Leeann Lane and Dr Regina Murphy of DCU and Prof Luke Gibbons of NUI Maynooth for specific assistance through the research stages of this work.
* DMAPP is an acronym for the Dorothy Macardle Archive and Performance Project. Other upcoming work includes a BAI and RTÉ-funded radio documentary (with Lyric feature) to be broadcast on November 6th, the centenary of Dorothy's arrest and a short film in collaboration with An Táin film artist in residence Colm Mullen (release date to be announced).