Transcriber's Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.
DOING MY BIT
FOR IRELAND
MARGARET SKINNIDER
School-teacher, suffragist, nationalist:
wounded while fighting in theuniform of
the Irish Volunteers
DOING MY BIT
FOR IRELAND
BY
MARGARET SKINNIDER
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1917
Copyright, 1917, by
The Century Co.
———
Published, June, 1917
INTRODUCTION
When the revolt of a people that feels itself oppressed is successful,it is written down in history as a revolution—as in this country in1776. When it fails, it is called an insurrection—as in Ireland in1916. Those who conquer usually write the history of the conquest. Forthat reason the story of the "Dublin Insurrection" may become legendaryin Ireland, where it passes from mouth to mouth, and may remain quiteunknown throughout the rest of the world, unless those of us who were init and yet escaped execution, imprisonment, or deportation, writetruthfully of our personal part in the rising of Easter week.
It was in my own right name that I[Pg vi] applied for a passport to come tothis country. When it was granted me after a long delay, I wondered if,after all, the English authorities had known nothing of my activity inthe rising. But that can hardly be, for it was a Government detectivewho came to arrest me at the hospital in Dublin where I was recoveringfrom wounds received during the fighting.
I was not allowed to stay in prison; the surgeon in charge of thehospital insisted to the authorities at Dublin Castle that I was in nocondition to be locked up in a cell. But later they might have arrestedme, for I was in Dublin twice—once in August and again in November. Onboth occasions detectives were following me. I have heard that threedays after I openly left my home in Glasgow to come to this country,inquiries were made for me of my family and friends.
That there is some risk in publishing my story, I am well aware; butthat is the sort of risk which we who love Ireland must run, if we areto bring to the knowledge of the world the truth of that heroic attemptlast spring to free Ireland and win for her a place as a small butindependent nation, entitled to the respect of all who love liberty. Itis to win that respect, even though we failed to gain our freedom, thatI tell what I know of the rising.
I find that here in America it is hard to imagine a successful Irishrevolt, but there was more than a fighting chance for us as our planswere laid. Ireland can easily be defended by the population once theyare aroused, for the country is well suited to