Margaret Skinnider
By Mary McAuliffe, Dublin: Historical Association of Ireland and University College Dublin, Press, , pp. , p/b, £, ISBN and ISSN
This small but compelling book tells the remarkable story of Margaret Skinnider (), feminist, Irish revolutionary, trade unionist, political activist and teacher. Born in Scotland of Irish parents, a militant suffragette in Glasgow, she became a combatant in the Easter Rising, the only woman wounded in the conflict. After the Irish civil war, during which she was a leading figure in the anti-Treaty IRA, she returned to teaching, became one of its trade union leaders and continued the fight for equality and justice for all. She was supported by a near fifty-year partnership with Nόra O’Keeffe, another Irish revolutionary. She was buried with full honours in the Republican plot, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, alongside Constance Markievicz.
Dr Mike Mecham, St Mary’s University, London
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The rich, varied, active and very political life of a committed feminist, trade union activist and republican.
By Mary McAuliffe
There has been an upsurge in the researching and writing of Irish revolutionary women’s history in recent years, with a corresponding public interest in and engagement with the lives, activisms and contributions of these women. As a result of the work, mainly, of female historians, revolutionary histories are now regarded as presenting an incomplete analysis if they do not also include the contributions and activities of women. This is only to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the activism and contributions of these women are often included only as a singular aspect of their lives; full biographies of revolutionary women are few and far between. Recent welcome contributions have included the expanded and reissued biography of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington by Margaret Ward, the books on Rosamond Jacob and, more recently, Dorothy Macardle by Leeann Lane, and Lauren Arrington’s Revolutionary lives—Constance and Casimir Markievicz.
Archives not gender-neutral
There are significant issues with the writing of women’s biographies. Archives, for instance, a
By Wednesday, the College was under sporadic heavy firing from both machine gun and sniper fire, with bullets cracking through windows, forcing those inside to take cover behind the thick stone walls. Margaret was eager to experience military action and pleaded with Commandant Mallin to allow her bomb the Shelbourne. Eventually he acquiesced to her request and a plan was devised.
Before the Shelbourne could be bombed, Mallin needed to cut off any possible British retreat before attempting to destroy the machine gun outpost. Margaret’s suggestion of firebombing the Shelbourne had stuck with him and he decided that the best course of action would be to the buildings surrounding the Russell Hotel in order to block any retreat from St. Stephen’s Green. Margaret was chosen for the attack party. This was to be her first military sortie of the Rising. Margaret was lucky to escape with her life from their attack on the Russell Hotel. The unit had reached the building unperturbed in just a few moments run. However, once there, a unintended shot alerted the nearby British soldiers to the rebels presence. Soon they were under a hail of fire as the flash of the muzzle had revealed th
Sir,—Dr Mary McAuliffe’s article (HI , March/April ) and recently published biography of Margaret Skinnider are to be warmly welcomed as throwing another light on Irish republican activists of a century ago, and especially those survivors for whom revolution did not lead to fame or political careers but who nonetheless continued their activism throughout their lives. Hopefully this trend will continue and we will see others tackled, such as Róisín Walsh/Breathnach (who was to become the pioneering Dublin City Librarian).
We should also welcome Dr McAuliffe’s support for a correction to the widespread misconception that the refusal of a wounds pension to Skinnider in the s was on account of her sex. Brigid Lyons Thornton, a military service applicant whose case encountered a similar civil servant note on the ‘masculine definition’ of soldiering, also featured in the same records release. However, Lyons Thornton would get her military service certificate and a pension award at the end of , undoubtedly owing to her solidly Treatyite credentials, as opposed to Skinnider. (A second female applicant with National Army service, Patricia Hoey, would fail in her pension application no
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