Dorothy Macardle (1889-1958): Republican and Internationalist

Author(s): Nadia Clare Smith

Source: History Ireland, Vol. 15, No. 3, Ireland and Slavery (May - Jun., 2007), pp. 14-15
Published by: Wordwell Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27725623 .
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Dorothy Macardle
internationalist
Seventyyears after the publication of The IrishRepublic, Nadia Clare Smith reassesses itsauthor.
'I am a
propagandist, unrepentant
and unashamed', Dorothy Macardle,
author of The IrishRepublic, announced
in June 1939. Many readers familiar
with her classic historyof the Irish
revolution, commissioned by her
political hero ?amon de Valera, might
be only too ready to concur with
Macardle's candid self-assessment.
this instance, however, she was
speaking not in relation to her activities
as a republican journalistor Fianna Fail
supporter, but as a proponent of the
League of Nations who was urging an
American audience to speak out against
fascism and to support international
cooperation. A half-centuryafter her
death, Macardle, a historian, journalist,
novelist, playwright, activist and
student of the occult, ismainly
remembered as the politically engaged
author of The IrishRepublic.
An unlikely republican, Dorothy
Macardle was born inDundalk in 1889
toMinnie Ross Macardle, a troubled
and enigmatic Englishwoman, and
Thomas Callan Macardle, the chairman
of Dundalk's Macardle Moore brewery.
The Macardles were a wealthy Catholic
This content downloaded from 62.122.73.128 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:19:18 AM
(1889-1958): republican and
familywith both unionist and Home history,as most of the other women
Rule sympathies. Dorothy moved to historians wrote on
early modern
Dublin inher teens and was educated Ireland.The 1930s also marked the
at Alexandra College and University emergence of the modern, university
College Dublin. InDublin she met based Irishhistorical profession,whose
prominent nationalists, such as Maud leading figureswere the young
Gonne MacBride, and moved from academic historians Robert Dudley
cultural nationalism to republicanism Edwards of UniversityCollege Dublin
while forging a career as a teacher and and Theodore Moody of Trinity
playwright She worked as a journalist College, founders of the journal Irish
and publicist during theWar of Historical Studies.While the new
Independence and the CivilWar, when professionals concentrated on early
she supported the anti-Treaty side and modern rather than contemporary Irish
served a prison sentence. In 1926 she history, theywere aware ofMacardle,
leftSinn F?in and joined ?amon de and R. D. Edwards praised her efforts.
Valera's new Fianna Fail party, believing The IrishRepublicmet with much
that an Irishrepublic could be achieved popular acclaim in Ireland,as well as
through political means. During the some misgivings, and brought
late 1920s and 1930s she researched Macardle widespread recognitionwhen
and wrote The IrishRepublic, itwas published in 1937. The Irish
commissioned by de Valera, while Press, the newspaper linkedwith de
continuing towork as a journalist and Valera and Fianna Fail, actively
playwright. promoted the book by publishing
Macardle worked on The Irish extracts as well as a
glowing review.
Republic during a critical phase in the The IrishTimes review offeredmeasured
development of themodern Irish praise, as did the Times Literary
historical profession. She was one of Supplement,which brought the book to
many accomplished Irishfemale the attention of British readers. The
historians during the Free State period. most hostile responses in Ireland came
Others included Mary Hayden, Mary from the Irish Independent, the
Donovan O'Sullivan, S?le ni Chinneide, newspaper of FineGael supporters,
Constantia Maxwell, Alice Stopford which opposed Macardle's treatment of
Green, Eleanor Hull, ^ the Free State side in the CivilWar and
In RosamondJacob, her exaltation of de Valera, and the
^??????*^
HelenaConcannon, Catholic Bulletin,which felt that
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contemporary Irishpolitical
14 History IRELAND May/June2007
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 NEWS AND SHORTS

Macardle had slighted the role of the

Catholic Church in the Irish
independence movement. Overall, the
responses to The IrishRepublic
combined praise forMacardle's
research, thorough documentation,
range of sources and narration
dramatic events with reservations
the book's political slant. Although
stocks of the book were blown to bits
when the Luftwaffedropped bombs on
a warehouse in London duringWorld
War II,The IrishRepublic, likethe
phoenix, rose from itsown ashes and
was reprinted several times,most
recently in2005. Itwas pressed into
political service by de Valera and Fianna
Fail over the years, as de Valera
considered it 'the only really
authoritative account of the period
1916-26'.
Ironically,The IrishRepublicwas
published at a timewhen Macardle
began to raise objections to Fianna
Fail's policies, particularly censorship
and legislationpertaining towomen in
employment. Her secular, liberalvision
of republicanism came into conflict
with the official,more conservative
nationalism promoted by Fianna Fail in
the 1930s. Like other Irishfeminists,she
spoke out against the 1937
Constitution because of itsclauses on
women. In the late 1930s Macardle
turned her attention to international
affairsand became a strong supporter
of the League of Nations and a vocal
opponent of fascism. In the late 1940s
she reached a rapprochementwith de
Valera and Fianna Fail, although she
continued to speak out against
censorship. At this time she became a
supporter of the United Nations and its
humanitarian efforts in post-war
Europe, and wrote Children of Europe in
1949. An account of the plight of
children during and after thewar, the
book was an early contribution to the
social historyofWorld War IIand the
Holocaust.
The completion of The IrishRepublic
allowed Macardle to concentrate on
writing novels, and she wrote four
between 1941 and 1953. A student of
the occult, three of her novels dealt
with supernatural themes, including
ghosts, extra-sensory perception
witchcraft,while her least successful
novel was a wartime romance.
novels, likesome of her earlier plays,
tend to feature dysfunctional families,
troubled marriages and parent-child
relationships, and problematic
-IRISH
of
THE ANG^O
about
CONFLICT
DE
VALERA
writes i
"Ne matter what the futo re may hold for
the tri*h nat?o?, the seven years?I tl 6 to
for ever remain a peri&d of
?tEir-must
ahservtaff Interest. Miss Maeardle's book
swpi??es the complete and
r*esrd.
at^orlgpjUve
In it the story ?f the whole fee?
yairs is to?d.
"She lived through tue period, took; an
ietWe interest in affairs, was personally
a number #t the $rhs???a?
a?quainted^e?th
aeters and knew exaetty where to leofc for
th? information required."
(From PrtiWeni?? Vata-*'* *rfia*?;.
JS-ix?rvIrishman MUST Read
THE IRISH REPUBLIC
By DOROTHY MACARDLE
sexuality, and allowed Macardle to 1937 Constitution might like,turns out
grapple, increative and coded ways, to be not quite what she seemed.
with some of her own preoccupations. Dorothy Macardle was an
Her most successful novel, Uneasy accomplished and successfulwriter in
freehold,a haunted-house mystery set twentieth-century Irelandwhose
in England, was adapted for the screen engagement with global events and
and released as a filmcalled The internationalcurrents of thought
Uninvited in 1944. Itwas compared to interactedwith her Irishrepublican
Alfred Hitchcock's filmRebecca (1940), thinking.A sophisticated and liberal
based on Daphne du Maurier's novel, nationalist and internationalist,her
and indeed the two works contain career challenges the related notions
some similar characters and plot that Irishwomen disengaged from
devices. Tim Pat Coogan, inhis public life
between the 1920s and the
biography of de Valera, recounts how 1960s and that Irishrepublicans in the
the taoiseach watched The Uninvited at Free State period were simply
and the Savoy inDublin with his staff xenophobic nationalists unconcerned
members Kathleen O'Connell and about world events, x
Her Maurice Moynihan. De Valera
apparently disliked the film's twist Nadia Clare Smith lectures inhistoryat
ending, inwhich one character, Boston College. Her Dorothy Macardle
seemingly an icon of conventional will be published shortlybyWoodfield
womanhood whom the framersof the Press.

History IRELAND May/June2007 15

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