Scotland and the Easter Rising

‘Scotland and the Easter Rising’ edited by Glasgow University Professor of English Literature Willy Maley and doctoral candidate Kirsty Lusk to be published later this month, reveal the connections between Scotland and the six-day armed uprising. Central to the book is the story of James Connolly, born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh to Irish immigrant parents, who was Commandant General of the Republican forces during Easter Week 1916 and was a signatory to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. When the Rising eventually failed Connolly, who was seriously injured in the fighting, was rounded up with others and executed by a British firing squad.

Margaret Skinnider, suffragette, born in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, is another republican sympathiser who features heavily in the book. She served as a scout, dispatch-rider, sniper and raider in the Rising. Skinnider was the only female combatant injured in action during the battle. Skinnider, a 23-year-old Scottish teacher, became convinced of the need for Irish independence during childhood holidays. Skinnider hid bomb detonators ­beneath her hat as she travelled by ferry to Dublin in 1915 and once there became involved in preparations for the Rising.

Lusk notes: “Skinnider had joined a rifle club in Glasgow, one of many set up, ironically, to train women in case they were required to defend Britain, and she proved herself a better shot than any of the boys when taken to a local shooting gallery. Skinnider took a spot in the rafters of the Royal College of Surgeons to fight as a sniper against the British soldiers placed at the Shelbourne Hotel. ‘More than once I saw the man I aimed at fall,’ she recounts.”

Maley remarks in the article “I believe that the Easter Rising still has important lessons to teach us...” 

Indeed, it does…lessons on what not to do in the advance of socialist ideas. 

The late Ian Bell in his article asked why Connolly was absent from debates leading up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. He certainly wasn’t forgotten by Socialist Courier blog-posts as a search of our archives would demonstrate and was cited when we pointed out the futility of nationalism.