One woman, Socialism and Irish independence

Brian Dempsey explores the remarkable life of a home-grown Scottish activist for Irish independence

Margaret Skinnider

Mary McAuliffe

University College Dublin Press (2020) pp. 128

Paperback: £16.99

ISBN: 9781910820537

One important aspect of the intense activity around the centenary of the 1916 Irish Easter Rising was a determination by scholars and activists to uncover and celebrate the important role of women in the fight for Irish independence.This impressive biography of Margaret Skinnider achieves that goal, recovering fascinating details of her lifelong activism and achievements. As a working-class feminist, an active revolutionary republican socialist and a woman-loving-woman or lesbian, Skinnider’s life could so easily have been lost to history.

Margaret Skinnider was born in Coatbridge in 1892 to a mother with Irish heritage and an Irish father, and moved to Glasgow with her family when Margaret was about seven years old. While Ireland would become the predominant issue in Skinnider’s life and work, her first political engagement was with militant suffragette activities in Glasgow.

The Skinniders were working class but a compensation payment for an industrial accident suffered by her father meant there was enough money for the children to receive an education. Margaret qualified as a primary school teacher from Glasgow’s Notre Dame Roman Catholic training college in 1913 and it was during this time that she became active in both suffragette militancy and socialism, working in the Women’s Social and Political Union, the United Suffragists and the Catholic Socialist Society.

There is little direct archival evidence of Skinnider’s activities in Glasgow, but her involvement can still be traced. For example, in Helen Crawfurd’s unpublished memoirs she notes that Margaret took her place on a picket line at Perth prison protesting the brutal treatment of suffragette prisoners, while Crawfurd herself was protesting against a visit by King George V and Queen Mary. McAuliffe concludes that Margaret was not a leader in suffragette activities but was active enough to become known to the Glasgow police.

Skinnider did then take a leadership role in Scottish support for Irish independence. In 1915 she took up the British army’s offer of rifle training for women and became a proficient sniper. This training was intended to bolster defence of the Imperial homeland in the event of a German invasion, but Margaret had other plans. Skinnider became active in, and

While Ireland would become the predominant issue in Skinniders LIFE AND WORK, HER fiRST POLITICAL engagement was with militant suffragette activities in Glasgow

soon captain of, the Glasgow branch of the Irish militant women’s nationalist organisation Cumann na mBan. She was involved in raids on shipyards to steal explosives for the Irish struggle and became an organiser in the Glasgow branch of

Na Fianna Éireann, the Irish alternative to the imperialist Boy Scouts, and led the boys in drill. On one trip to Dublin in 1915 Skinnider carried detonators in her hat and the necessary connecting wires wrapped round her waist, despite her real fear that the rough passage might set off the detonators. As McAuliffe concludes, both the militant suffragette and republican socialist struggles she encountered in Glasgow would inform Skinnider’s politics for the rest of her life.

During her visits to Dublin, Skinnider formed lasting friendships with many republican revolutionaries, including countess Constance Markievicz and Nora Connolly O’Brien.When the Easter Rising erupted in 1916, Skinnider fought in the Irish Citizen’s Army alongside these women. She was gravely wounded leading a small group of volunteers at Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green but managed to evade arrest and returned to Scotland, where

A Scottish Blockade Runner in the American Civil War: Joannes Wyllie of the Steamer Ad-Vance

John F. Messner Whittles Publishing (July 2021) pp. 264

Paperback: £18.99 ISBN: 9781849954822

When it comes to tales of a fake death followed by an advantageous career change, one would assume they were reading a spy novel or crime drama. Yet this was the life of a blockade ship runner named Joannes Wyllie – a man prepared to break through the Union blockade of Confederate ports to make his fortune. As John F. Messner viewed an oil painting of the Ad-Vance and read the name ‘Joannes Wyllie’ underneath at the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, he wondered like many of us do in similar circumstances: who was this man? Thus began Messner’s quest to find out who Joannes Wyllie was, and equally as important, why was this Scotsman’s story forgotten for over a century? To piece together Wyllie’s adventurous life, Messner began his adventure combing through British newspaper archives. Civil War historians and enthusiasts should appreciate the summary of Messner’s research methods, as well as sympathise as he entered a Civil War rabbit-hole to obtain such detailed information.

A Scottish Blockade Runner in the American Civil War begins with the life of a young Joannes Wyllie in rural Scotland. As the son of a gardener,Wyllie worked beside his father in the garden during the day and in the evenings, he attended school. After a brief yet questionable stint in the army, he decided to try his hand at teaching. He enrolled at the University of St Andrews to formalise his education where he realised his gift for public speaking and teaching. However, whether the issues were the financial cost of higher education or boredom with academic life,Wyllie left university without graduating. Messner concludes the story ofWyllie’s early years by recounting howWyllie returned to his life as a teacher for three years before meeting his untimely, and completely untrue, death.

It is within the fake death fiasco that Joannes Wyllie’s much soughtafter adventure unfolds. Messner speculates that the drama over Wyllie’s fake death, and his emotions throughout the following year, caused him to leave his teaching post for fear of damaging his standing within his community. Chapters two to eight provide impressive detail, tracing Wyllie’s mariner’s journey from inexperienced crew apprentice in 1852

Wyllie’s voyages across the Atlantic are pieced together with the help of ships’ logs and passenger letters, which Messner notates throughout the extensive appendices

on the Hope to master, and eventually commander, of the Ad-Vance by 1864. For anyone who is a nautical novice, Messner takes care to detail how each vessel was an improvement on the one before, and how quickly blockade runners changed in a short period of time. He also examines the gravity of how the confederate states and the United Kingdom relied on the success of adventurers like Wyllie to break through the Union blockades. Because of men like Wyllie, the southern states received much needed armaments, as well as basic everyday goods, and the United Kingdom could get cotton shipments.

Wyllie’s voyages across the Atlantic are pieced together with the help of ships’ logs and passenger letters, which Messner notates throughout the extensive appendices.Yet it is in these details where some readers may question the validity of these voyages, and of Joannes Wyllie. The issues arise from a recognised lack of adequate record keeping in confederate states during the Civil War and conflicting accounts of Wyllie and his personal life. Along with Wyllie’s age discrepancies, there are acknowledged variations of his name that could call into question whether the ‘fake’ death was true. Early in the book there is an excerpt written by Wyllie which reads:

You may be industrious, persevering, emulous, and punctual, but you cannot be true friends, or worthy members of society, unless you are truthful.Truth lies at the foundation of all well constituted, and well-regulated societies, as well as at the bottom of every truly great and noble character. [pg. 11]

Such a statement about truthfulness in relation to possessing a noble character contradicts information Messner discovered about Wyllie falsifying his birth year to appear four years younger. [pg. 28] Another contradiction is found when Messner details the hardships endured by the citizens of Wilmington, North Carolina and how Wyllie would have been an eyewitness to those events but Wyllie’s whereabouts while in port were unknown or how frequently he left the steamer [pg. 81]. Further, there is the lack of Union sources to corroborate any conflict with the Ad-Vance or its capture.

The concluding chapters describe Joannes Wyllie’s last years after he left life at sea. He settled down and married but did not have children. The bulk of his estate was inherited by extended family and friends. In his retirement,Wyllie travelled to attend speaking engagements but only within the county where he lived: anyone who wanted to hear him had to come to him.The content of these speeches reveals the sense of pride this widely-travelled Scot, Joannes Wyllie, had in his adventures.

Amanda Lawson is currently a freelance writer based in Tennessee. She holds a double masters fromVanderbilt University and Austin Peay State University. Once the pandemic is over, Amanda hopes to continue towards obtaining a PhD.