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Coatbridge - ML5 3HB

The only woman wounded as a fighter in the 1916 Easter rising in Dublin was school teacher Margaret Skinnider. Born in Coatbridge in 1892, Margaret cut her teeth as a Scottish suffragette activist. She gained weapon skills at a ladies rifle club for the ‘defence of the Empire’, but joined the Glasgow branch of Cumann na mBan, the women’s branch of the Irish Volunteers. Margaret returned to Dublin in 1916 and became a dispatch rider in the Rising, braving fire on her bicycle. Later she fought as a sniper, and finally was badly wounded, but was allowed to find safe passage home because of her ‘loyal Scots accent’. With Kirsty Lusk of Glasgow University. Archive audio courtesy of RTE from 'Women of the Revolution’ broadcast 12th April 1971.