What a life and what a legacy

I LOVE to hear of fierce, strong women, especially ones who can multitask like a superhero—women with a good few strings to their bow. Well, I can tell you something with great certainty, that in finding Margaret Skinnider, (Ní Scineadóra, Máighréad, 1893-1971) I found one hell of a woman. She was a Revolutionary, a freedom fighter, a Suffragette, an expert sniper, a teacher in all subjects, a Republican, a trade unionist, a fluent Irish speaker and a damn fine human being. Were she living now, I’m convinced Gerry Cinnamon would dedicate She’s a Belter to her. And would you believe this less than ordinary lassie was born in Coatbridge? I mean really.

I sat down one Sunday to watch a documentary presented by the fabulous Fiona Shaw: Seven Women. The Untold Story of the Irish Easter Rising. It tells the true stories of seven women central to Ireland’s fight for independence. Margaret Skinnider was among them. The daughter of a Scots mother and an Irish immigrant father from County Monaghan, she came into this world with a fighting fist and a blatant determination. And not only was she a girl with a rebel heart; she was a girl with a kind heart too.

A life on show

Fast forward a couple of months and I am privileged to be in the audience of the new play, Rebel Heart, performed on stage in Grace’s in Glasgow (above). Warm white lights adorn the perimeter of the stage reminding me of an old American cinema billboard. I can’t believe that I’ve only recently heard of this woman and now I’m in town about the see a play dedicated to her life. The Irish flag is on the right of the stage, whilst a coat stand with military jackets, hats and guns is on the left. A simple table and chair sit centre stage. The performance is in a rehearsed reading format, which I like; as though Margaret herself is reading her own life story. I felt this gave the play a sense of ‘Jackanory.’

Margaret is played by talented actress, Jasmine Main and directed by another multi-talented woman, actress and director, Julie Hale. The performance was just over an hour long; but what an intense hour it was, mainly because actress, Jasmine embodied the very heart, soul, personality and physicality of the rebel heart that was, Margaret Skinnider. From her childhood days when she crashed head first into a fence on a home-made go-kart, up to her freedom fighting days alongside the Countess Markievicz in the Easter Rising in Dublin, Margaret seemed to go against everything her parents wanted her to do. In her own words: “Ye canny pick yer parents.” Jasmine convinced the audience wholeheartedly through her playful body language and juvenile Glesga vernacular, that she was the strong willed and defiant young Margaret Skinnider. The daughter who chose fighting for what was right, over domesticity.

She qualified as a teacher at Craiglockhart and taught maths in St Agnes School in Lambhill. She attended a woman’s rifle club when the First World War broke out and her tutor remarked on her fine marksmanship. She became active in the women’s suffrage movement and joined the Glasgow branches of both the Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan in 1914. Margaret was then invited to Dublin at Christmas 1915 by Countess Markievicz who got wind of the Glasgow rebel’s abilities and activities. She then travelled by ferry to Dublin smuggling detonators hidden inside her hat with the wires wrapped around her body. She quickly joined the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) and participated in raids for explosives and made good use of her maths skills by drawing from observation detailed and scaled maps of Beggars Bush and Portobello military barracks for use by the Republicans. She told them she could pass for a boy ‘even if it came to wrestling or whistling’ and proved this by accompanying a troop of Fianna Éireann cadets around the city disguised in their uniform. At this point, Margaret—actress Jasmine—changes into said uniform and slaps a bunnet on her head looking every bit the boy she said she could be.

Markievicz contacted Skinnider again after she returned to Glasgow, alerting her to the imminence of the Easter Rising, so she returned to Dublin on Holy Thursday during her Easter holidays. Her mother pleaded with her not to go, saying ‘but you’re a teacher!’ Her pleading fell on deaf ears. She manufactured cartridges in Liberty Hall, and made her way to Belfast to get a message to the family of James Connolly and accompanied them to Dublin the following morning. During Easter Week she served in the ICA’s St Stephen’s Green contingent under the command of Michael Mallin. Markievicz was second-in-command.

Throughout the play Margaret (Jasmine) adopts the voices, accents and persona of various people, including the refined Anglo-Irish tone of Countess Markievicz and the soft Irish brogue of Nora Connolly, James’s daughter. This I have to mention and commend. Mastering one accent can be hard enough never mind taking on several. So Maith thu Jasmine!

A Rebel Heart

Skinnider was an advance scout and was the first of the contingent to arrive on St Stephen’s Green. Detailed as dispatch-rider, she travelled by bicycle dressed in women’s clothes to arouse less suspicion—although still attracting hostile fire—but changed into ICA uniform while taking turns on sniper duty in the Royal College of Surgeons. When Mallin rejected her plan to hurl a bomb from a passing bicycle into the British-occupied Shelbourne Hotel as it was regarded too risky for a woman, she argued that as women were equal to men under the Irish Republic, they had an equal right to risk their lives.

This girl was a Suffragette after all. She had fought for the vote which sometimes meant resorting to more militant forms of action. She had no fear. In a bid to cut off the retreat of a British sniping party she was shot three times and critically wounded on Wednesday April 26 and lay in the Royal College of Surgeons for four days, her life hanging in the balance. She was then taken to St Vincent’s Hospital just before the garrison's surrender. Margaret was the most serious of female casualties and spent seven weeks recovering in hospital. She was arrested and questioned, but was released through the intervention of the hospital’s head doctor.

The telling of her story involved the telling of other casualties too and how she learned of them. James Connolly’s daughter Nora inflicted the bad news about her father. His parting words to her before being taken out and shot, ‘Don’t be disappointed, we will rise again.’

What happened next you won’t believe. Mid soliloquy, where you could’ve heard a pin drop, Ireland score and the main bar next door erupts into a Troy Parrott volcano. This is a true tragicomic moment in theatre and our one woman show may well have died right there on stage along with Connolly. But it didn’t. Jasmine kept going amidst the madness of world cup qualifiers celebrations. I have so much respect for this young girl that I want to get up and hug her.

Anyway, back to the play. Margaret did rise and went to the US on a Cumann na mBan propaganda tour where she wrote an account of her part in the rising, Doing my bit for Ireland (1917). She returned to Dublin in April 1919 where she worked for Cumann na mBan and the IRA, organising first aid training, distributing monies for prisoner dependents, going on raids for firearms and sheltering people on the run. She was disillusioned by the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty so involved herself with the anti-Treaty side in the bitter civil war. She was a courier for some of the top-ranking IRA members during the attack on the Four Courts including Liam Mellows and Cathal Brugha. She was arrested and imprisoned in Mountjoy from 1922-23, however, on her release she managed to procure a teaching position which she held until her retirement in the Irish Sisters of Charity National school, Dublin (1923–61).

Post-war years

Before the play began we were shown an interview with Maureen from Dublin. Maureen was taught by Margaret and spoke of her abilities as a teacher, her incredible kindness and fluency in Irish. Also her prolific role in the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) and how she campaigned over years for equal pay and status for women teachers. During the six-month 1946 teachers’ strike she served on the strike executive committee, then on the salaries and arbitration committee established in the aftermath. Her efforts were instrumental in securing common incremental salary scales for women and single men (1949). She served INTO as central executive committee member (1949-61), vice-president (1955-56) and president (1956-57), in the latter office representing Ireland at the world conference of the Organisation of the Teaching Profession (Manila, Philippines). On her retirement from teaching she served on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions executive council (1961-63).

Margaret Skinnider died on October 11, 1971, and was buried beside Countess Markievicz in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. The only other woman buried here is James Connolly’s wife, Lillie. What a life and what a legacy.

L J Sexton, mum of four, returned to university to pursue her passion for the written word. She achieved her Honours Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and hasn't stopped writing since. Lyn is born of Irish parents and lived in Donegal for eight years. She is also the press officer for Irish Minstrels CCÉ music group based in St Roch’s Secondary School