Margaret Skinnider

Margaret Skinnider (Mairéad Ní Scinneadora)
Margaret Skinnider
Born	(1892-05-28)28 May 1892 Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Died	10 October 1971(1971-10-10) (aged 79) Glengeary, Dublin, Ireland
Allegiance	Irish Citizen Army Irish Republican Army
Years of service	1915–1923
Rank	Not known
Battles/wars	Easter Rising Irish War of Independence Irish Civil War
Other work	Teacher

Margaret Skinnider (28 May 1892 – 10 October 1971) was a revolutionary and feminist born in Coatbridge, Scotland. She fought during the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Her part in the Easter Rising was all the more notable because she was a woman, a sniper and the only female wounded in the action. She was mentioned three times for bravery in the dispatches sent to the Dublin GPO. Sadhbh Walsche in The New York Times refers to her as "the schoolteacher turned sniper."

Skinnider was born in 1893 to Irish parents in the Lanarkshire town of Coatbridge. She trained as a mathematics teacher and joined Cumann na mBan in Glasgow, she was also involved in the women's suffrage movement. Ironically she had learned to shoot in a rifle club which had originally been set up so that women could help in defence of the British Empire. During her trips to Ireland Skinnider came under the influence of Constance Markievicz and became active in smuggling detonators and bomb-making equipment into Dublin (in her hat) in preparation for the 1916 Easter Rising. She along with Madeleine ffrench-Mullen spent time in the hills around Dublin testing dynamite.

When Skinnider was shown "the poorest part of Dublin" by Constance Markievicz, she wrote; "I do not believe there is a worse place in the world." The street was "a hollow full of sewage and refuse", and the building "as full of holes as if it had been under shellfire".

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 Constance 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.