National Library Archive

This file is from the Department of the Taoiseach relating to Miss Dorothy Macardle’s imprisonment and it runs from 1922-23.
The National Archives acquire departmental records when they become 30 years old. And they acquired these files as a tranche of records from the Department of Taoiseach.
The file consists of correspondence written in an effort to the have Dorothy Macardle released from prison. There are letters exchanged between Dorothy’s parents on one side and the military authorities and president Cosgrave on the other.
The letters start in December 1922 and run until 30th April 1923. Dorothy is released in May,1923 on health grounds. Because of Dorothy’s middle class background and coming from a well-known brewing family, these letters are exchanged on quite a high level.

There is only one letter on file from Dorothy. It is the only time we hear the voice of the woman who is at the centre of the entire file. It is quite a long letter that she writes demanding to know the grounds that the Free State has imprisoned her. Because as far as she knows it is not a crime to write propaganda.

There are three other files related to her at the National archive, another from the Department of Taoiseach, relating to corrections of Macardle’s magnum opus, The Irish Republic. It is regarded as the authoritative version of the Irish Revolution, and she was commissioned by de Valera to write it. There are two other files from Department of Foreign affairs which relate to Dorothy Macardle’s lecture trips to USA and to continental Europe and these date from 1930’s & 1950’s

The letters are from the following persons:
Thomas Callan Macardle, St Margaret’s. Dundalk brewery (Dorothy’s father)
Minnie Macardle, Stanhope Court Hotel, London (Dorothy’s mother)
President Cosgrave
Commander -in- chief
Mr Baker (Cosgrave’s Secretary)
General Richard Mulcahy (Minister for Defence)
J.J. O’Neill, Editor of the Manchester Guardian, Fleet Street

1922-1923