Leaving the Ladies is a play based on an actual event which took place on 11 December 1917 in the bathroom beside the Round Room in the Mansion House. This was no chance meeting of a group of ladies in the lavatory. Instead it was an organised and minuted meeting of Women Delegates to the All Ireland Conference, attended by some of the most important and influential women of the day; Dr Kathleen Lynn, Rosamond Jacob, Dulcibella Barton, Mary Perolz, Alice Ginnell, Margaret Kennedy and Constance de Markievicz.

Leaving the Ladies had a full reading in period costume in the National Library of Ireland in 2019 performed by Smashing Times Theatre Company directed by Mary Moynihan

Dr Sinéad McCoole is a specialist in modern Irish history, focusing on the role of women in the late 19th and 20th century.