Rosaleen McDonagh Biblical Studies (BA), Ethnic and Racial Studies (MPhil), Creative Writing (MPhil)

Rosaleen McDonagh is a disabled Traveller woman.  She is a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission statutory advisory committee which support monitoring of Ireland's implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Originally from Sligo, she worked in Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre for ten years, managing the Violence Against Women programme, and remains a board member.  She is a regular contributor to the Irish Times and has written ostensibly within the framework of a Traveller feminist perspective. McDonagh’s work includes Mainstream, The Baby Doll Project, Stuck, She’s Not Mine, and Rings.  In 2012, Rosaleen was commissioned for a feature article in the Irish Times responding to Channel 4’s series My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.  In 2013/2014, she worked with Graeae Theatre on its WTP programme.  As part of this project, she spent two weeks on attachment in The Royal Court Theatre.  Her play, Mainstream was directed by Olivier Award winner Jim Culleton for Fishamble and Project Arts Centre in 2016.  In 2018, Fishamble produced Rosaleen’s play Running Out of Road in the RHK to mark the first anniversary of Traveller Ethnicity recognition.  Rosaleen was writer in residence with Tuti Theatre Company in Adelaide, Australia in 2019.  Her play, Walls and Windows, opened in the Abbey in August 2021.  Her book of essays on her identity as a disabled Traveller woman, Unsettled was published in August 2021 and went on to be shortlisted for an An Post Irish book award.  Most recently, she has appeared on the cover of the May 2023 issue of British Vogue along fellow Disabled Leader Sinéad Burke

Portrait of Rosaleen McDonagh