Leaving the Ladies is based on an actual event which took place on 11 December 1917 in the bathroom beside the Round Room in the Mansion House, Dublin. 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. This meeting was attended by some of the most important and influential women of the day; Constance de Markievicz, Dr Kathleen Lynn, Rosamond Jacob, Dulcibella Barton, Mary Perolz, Alice Ginnell and Margaret Kennedy – some of whom had fought in the Easter Rising the previous year