[4] From 1970 onward, Bardwell's work was published regularly, starting with her first volume of poetry, The Mad Cyclist, which was later followed by her first novel, Girl on a Bicycle.
On the publication of Bardwell's fourth collection of poetry, The White Beach, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin stated "it is good to see her work of the decades collected – it has inspired many Irish poets, male and female, and should be much more widely known", adding that her work was "witty, full of sharp intimate honesty, full of truth and surprises.
"[7] In 1975, Bardwell co-founded the long-running literary magazine Cyphers with Pearse Hutchinson Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Macdara Woods, and acted as a co-editor until 2012.
[2] In later life, Bardwell moved to Annaghmakerrig in County Monaghan and later to Cloonagh in Sligo, where in 1993 she co-founded the Scríobh Literary Festival.
[6] Bardwell was a member of the Irish artists' association Aosdána and acted as one of Patrick Kavanagh's literary executors.
2022 also saw the publication of posthumous work from Bardwell, in the form of previously unpublished prose and poetry: from Doire Press a novella and eight new stories titled The Heart and the Arrow, and from Salmon Press the Collected Poems which brought together her collections alongside material from early magazines and later work not previously published.