Rosaleen McDonagh is a Traveller woman with a disability originally from Sligo. She previously worked in Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre managing the Violence Against Women programme, and remains a board member. Rosaleen has a BA in Biblical & Theological Studies, an MPhil in Ethnic & Racial Studies and an MPhil in Creative Writing, all from Trinity College Dublin, and a PhD from Northumbria University. She is a regular contributor to the Irish Times, writing primarily within the framework of a Traveller feminist perspective. Rosaleen’s work includes Mainstream, The Baby Doll Project, Stuck, She’s Not Mine, Walls and Windows, Rings and Contentious Spaces. Rosaleen was appointed to The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in May 2020, where she is the chair of the Disability Advisory Committee. 

In 2018, Fishamble produced Rosaleen’s play Running Out of Road in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, to mark the first anniversary of Traveller Ethnicity recognition. Rosaleen was writer in residence with Tuti Theatre Company in Adelaide, Australia in 2019. 

Rosaleen is currently under Commission from the Abbey Theatre, she is writing an adaptation of Ibsen’s Dolls House. Rosaleen is also working on two books for Skein Press. The first, a collection of short stories entitled “Contentious Spaces”. Her third book “Bearings a Letter to Amy & Rosie Bridget”, is a letter to a young Traveller woman and a letter to a young Disabled woman.