page_title: Margaret Skinnider
section_title: Easter Rising
hierarchical_section_title: Margaret Skinnider / Easter Rising
caption_attribution_description: English: Margaret Skinnider disguised as a man. She was a Volunteer during the 1916 Rising in Ireland, and fought alongside her male revolutionaries.
context_page_description: Margaret Skinnider was a revolutionary and feminist born in Coatbridge, Scotland. She fought during the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin as a sniper, among other roles, and was the only female wounded in the action. As a scout, she was praised for her bravery. Sadhbh Walsche in The New York Times refers to her as "the schoolteacher turned sniper".
context_section_description: Operating variously as a scout, message runner (often dressed as a boy) and sniper, Skinnider
  took part in action against the British Army at the Garrison at the College of Surgeons and St. Stephen's Green under the Command of General Michael Mallin and Markievicz. Skinnider was reportedly an excellent markswoman. She was seriously wounded when she was shot three times attempting to burn down houses on Harcourt Street to try to cut off the retreat of British soldiers who had planted a machine gun post on the roof of the University Church.
  Nora Connolly O'Brien describes Skinnider's leading role in this action:
  When they were going out to attack the nest of snipers she was in charge of the squad. William Partridge, a very famous man in the working class movement, was there and he and other members of the squad accepted that she was in charge
  — 
  In her autobiography, Doing my bit for Ireland (New York – Century, 1917,Skinnider herself vividly describes her role as a sniper at St. Stephen's Green in the Easter Rising:
  It was dark there, full of smoke and the din of firing, but it was good to be in action. I could look across the tops of the trees and see the British soldiers on the roof of the Shelbourne. I could also hear their shot hailing against the roof and wall of our fortress, for in truth this building was just that. More than once I saw the man I aimed at fall.
  — 
  In terms of her role as a woman taking part in military action Skinnider comments:
  Commandant Mallin [...] finally agreed, though not at all willingly, for he did not want to let a woman run this sort of risk. My answer to this argument was that we had the same right to risk our lives as the men; that in the constitution of the Irish Republic, women were on an equality with men. For the first time in history, indeed, a constitution had been written that incorporated the principle of equal suffrage.
  — 
  The former president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, quoted Skinnider's stirring words in his 2006 address to the Sinn Féin Ard Feis.
  Injured in the battle, Skinnider spent several weeks in hospital before she contrived to escape whilst awaiting medical treatment and obtained a travel permit from Dublin Castle to enable her to return to Scotland.
caption: Margaret Skinnider disguised as a man
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