On the 7 September 1922 the Provisional Government decided to use Kilmainham Jail for women arrested for directly helping the IRA. Recently occupied by the military it was a site in need of much refurbishment; it was opened in late October but clearly modifications were limited. Dorothy Macardle described the oppressive physical space of the prison constructing it as a form of living death for the inmates. This paper considers what life was like for female inmates in the jail during the Civil War. The high-profile hunger strikes engaged in by women within the jail will be discussed through the lens of Mary MacSwiney and Dorothy Macardle. How women experienced hunger strike and the responses of the pro-Treaty government and the Catholic hierarchy will be examined.Dr Leeann Lane is a lecturer in the School of History and Geography, DCU. She has published three monographs: Rosamond Jacob: Third Person Singular (Dublin, UCD Press, 2010), Dorothy Macardle (Dublin: UCD Press, 2019), Mary MacSwiney (Dublin, UCD Press, 2025). The subjects of these biographies were middle-class women. She is now working on a book length study of the afterlives of single women in Cork city and county with a focus on working-class women. Her exhibition, funded by a Royal Irish Academy bursary, ‘Cork Afterlives: Single Women and the New Irish State’ is now on show in the Cregan library, DCU. It will move to the Cork City Library in December 2025.
Meeting place is the Johnston Room, located in the west corner of the North Range, just off the central courtyard of the Royal Hospital. Doors open 5:50pm. Look out for OPW signage.