Tributes have been paid in Galway to artist, Aosdána member and peace activist Margaretta D'Arcy who has died at the age of 91.
Ms D’Arcy, 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.
"Mad, bad and dangerous" 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 "beacon of peace".
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.
She said she viewed animal rights, veganism and world peace as being "very much aligned".
Ms D’Arcy campaigned this year for President Catherine Connolly, who visited her the week before last when Ms D’Arcy was admitted to hospital.
Using her walker, she was a regular participant in protests over the past two years in support of the Palestinian people.
A long-time peace activist, Ms D’Arcy 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 also spent time in solitary confinement in Armagh prison.
Ms D’Arcy was born in London in 1934, and her Irish father, Joseph D’Arcy, 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.
She attended school in London and in Cabra, Dublin, before going on to study drama at Trinity College.
She participated in over 70 years of activism, much of it with her late playwright husband John Arden.
Mr Arden, a film-maker and playwright participated in the Greenham Common campaign against bringing cruise missiles into Europe.
Ms D'arcy 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.
At an Aosdána 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.
Her novels include Tell Them Everything (1962) and Awkward Corners.
Her plays, most of which have been broadcast by RTÉ and the BBC, include The Pinprick of History, Vandaleur’s Folly, Women’s Voices from West of Ireland, Prison-voice of Countess Markievicz, A Suburban Suicide, and many more that were devised as group productions.
Film-maker and former Abbey theatre artistic director Lelia Doolan said Ms D'Arcy was a "warrior", while members of the Rossport community who she supported over the Corrib gas campaign recalled her long-time support.
When she returned her honorary doctorate conferred in 2022 to the University of Galway last month, she also handed back ceremonial garments and the scroll to a university security guard.
She had been waiting for clarification about an official ceremony to mark her relinquishing of the honorary title, and asked to meet the university’s new president, Professor David Burn as part of a group from Campus Anti-Genocide Coalition.
The coalition has 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.
The university had said that it has contractual obligations to continue its involvement with the project.
