Inactive Defunct Dorothy Macardle (7 March 1889 in Dundalk – 23 December 1958 in Drogheda)[1] was an Irish writer, novelist, playwright, journalist and non-academic historian.

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.

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.

[3] 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.

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.

Rioting followed and Free State forces opened fire, resulting in 14 people being seriously wounded while hundreds of others were harmed in the subsequent stampede to flee.

[2] Following the event, Macardle announced she was going to pursue support of the Anti-treaty side full-time in a letter to Alexandra College, which ultimately lead to her dismissal on 15 November 1922.

[2][1][4] In the following days Macardle was captured and imprisoned by the Free State government and subsequently served time in both Mountjoy and Kilmainham Gaols, with Rosamund Jacob as her cellmate.

[2] Following the Irish Civil War, Macardle remained active in Sinn Féin and was drawn into the camp of its leader Éamon de Valera and his wife Sinéad.

[4] Immediately upon the release of the report, the Minister of Defence Richard Mulcahy set up an inquiry in June 1924 to carry out a separate investigation by the government.

In addition to being a theatre and literary critic for the paper, Macardle also occasionally wrote pieces of investigative journalism such as reports on Dublin's slums.

Macardle was widely praised for her research, thorough documentation, range of sources and narration of dramatic events, alongside reservations about the book's political slant.

[7] Macardle spent seven years writing the book in a cottage in Delgany in Wicklow and it is a day-by-day account of the history of the events in Ireland from 1919 to 1923 recorded in painstaking detail together with voluminous source material.

The entire matter of the new constitution led Macardle to join Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington's Women's Social and Progressive League.

[2] While working as a journalist with the League of Nations in the late 1930s, Macardle acquired a considerable affinity with the plight of Czechoslovakia being pressed to make territorial concessions to Nazi Germany.