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<\/p>\nMs D\u2019Arcy, who ran in the local elections last year, had recently handed back her honorary doctorate to the University of Galway in protest over its research links to Israel\n<\/p>\n
Ms D\u2019Arcy, who ran in the local elections last year, had recently handed back her honorary doctorate to the University of Galway in protest over its research links to Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cMad, bad and dangerous\u201d was one of her local election campaign slogans, and she stood on a platform of returning power to local authorities, halting use of Shannon airport for military transit flights, and making Galway city a \u201cbeacon of peace\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said she was persuaded to stand in the Galway central ward by Sentient Rights Ireland, a movement committed to animal, human and environmental rights.<\/p>\n
She said she viewed animal rights, veganism and world peace as being \u201cvery much aligned\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms D\u2019Arcy campaigned this year for President Catherine Connolly, who visited her the week before last when Ms D\u2019Arcy was admitted to hospital.<\/p>\n
Using her walker, she was a regular participant in protests over the past two years in support of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Margaretta D’Arcy, then aged 78, taking part in a sit-down protest at Shannon Airport to mark the ninth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Photo: Press 22<\/p>\n
A long-time peace activist, Ms D\u2019Arcy served several prison sentences a decade ago over her opposition to the US military use of Shannon Airport. She was receiving treatment for cancer at the time. She has previously spent time in solitary confinement in Armagh prison.<\/p>\n
Ms D\u2019Arcy was born in London in 1934, and her Irish father, Joseph D\u2019Arcy, was a civil servant who had been a member of the IRA during the War of Independence, while her mother was of Russian Jewish origin.<\/p>\n
She attended school in London and in Cabra, Dublin, before going on to study drama at Trinity College.<\/p>\n
During over 70 years of activism, much of it with her late playwright husband John Arden, the film-maker and playwright participated in the Greenham Common campaign against bringing cruise missiles into Europe.<\/p>\n
She also served on the Committee of 100, the British anti-war group established in the 1960s, and supported the Shell to Sea campaign against the onshore location of the Corrib gas project in north Mayo.<\/p>\n
At an Aosd\u00e1na meeting in 2011, she refused to stand in honour of murdered PSNI Officer Ronan Kerr following his death, arguing a vote should have been taken on the issue.<\/p>\n
Her novels include Tell Them Everything (1962) and she also published Awkward Corners, a collection of essays and papers, in 1988. Her plays, most of which have been broadcast by RT\u00c9 and the BBC, include The Pinprick of History, Vandaleur\u2019s Folly, Women\u2019s Voices from West of Ireland, Prison-voice of Countess Markievicz, A Suburban Suicide, and many more that were devised as group productions.<\/p>\n
![\"Margaretta](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/055ee057-0827-4953-86c5-696060394441.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Margaretta D’Arcy. Photo: Andrew Downes<\/p>\n
Today’s News in 90 Seconds – Monday, November 24 <\/p>\n
Film-maker and former Abbey theatre artistic director Lelia Doolan said Ms D\u2019Arcy was a \u201cwarrior\u201d, while members of the Rossport community whom she supported over the Corrib gas campaign recalled her long-time support.<\/p>\n
When she returned her honorary doctorate to the University of Galway last month, she also handed back ceremonial garments and a scroll to a university security guard.<\/p>\n
She had been waiting for clarification about an official ceremony to mark her relinquishing of the honorary title, and asked to meet the university\u2019s new president, Prof David Burn as part of a group from Campus Anti-Genocide Coalition.<\/p>\n
Campaigners have been calling for the university to withdraw from a research project with the Technion Institute of Technology, which has links to the Israeli Defence Forces.<\/p>\n
The university had said that it has contractual obligations to continue its involvement with the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ms D\u2019Arcy, who ran in the local elections last year, had recently handed back her honorary doctorate to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,898],"class_list":{"0":"post-155772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}