Madam, - While glad you're starting to look at the complex role of women's participation in 1916, I was concerned by aspects of Tom Clonan's article (March 20th), especially his remarks on Dr Kathleen Lynn.
Dr Lynn was not sentenced to death, nor was she the first female medical doctor elected a resident at the Adelaide. In fact, the Adelaide refused her on the pretext that it had no female residence and it didn't employ a female resident doctor until November 1914, when no men applied because of the war. She was, however, the first female resident appointed to the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital and worked there until what hospital records call her "mysterious absence" during Easter 1916.
Dr Lynn was an officer of the Irish Citizen Army, the only organisation that allowed men and women to train side-by-side. Her rank arose from her position as a medical doctor, not as a combatant. She was a committed member of the Church of Ireland who worked to Gaelicise the church, believed passionately in socialism and deeply disliked militarism, never drilling with the ICA. She was not a pacifist.
On Monday April 24th, Dr Lynn planned to drive her car to the College of Surgeons with Constance Markievicz and Helena Molony, dropping off some supplies to City Hall. However, she stayed with Molony to tend to the dying ICA leader Sean Connolly and to the policeman he had mortally wounded, leaving Markievicz to go on to Surgeons.
Lynn took shelter in a back room, which was taken that evening. She gave the surrender because she was the senior officer. I found no evidence that she was "asked to go home".
In her own words, "all women taken to Ship St about 8.30. We were locked in a filthy store, given blankets thick with lice & fleas to cover us." On Monday May 1st, they were marched to Kilmainham Gaol, with Lynn and Countess Plunkett and moved to Mountjoy the next day.
Lynn refused to have herself classified as a "lunatic" to avoid incarceration and was deported to England in June, where she was assigned to work as a locum at Abingdon because doctors were at a premium.
She returned to Mayo in July and was released officially in August, following representations from Lawrence Ginnell MP and her family.
Lynn was one of only four women (and three Protestants) elected to the 24-person Sinn Féin executive under Eamon de Valera. Lynn would have considered the First Dáil to date from 1919, not 1921 as Mr Clonan states.
Women leaders had to work hard to keep issues of inclusion on the agenda after Easter 1916, as Ward, Luddy, Valiulis and others document. Lynn spent a week with Kathleen Clarke in Limerick in March 1917 to that end. For many, 1916 was a rite of passage and, whatever the broader rights and wrongs, it is significant that the Irish Parliamentary Party refused to nominate even one woman candidate in the 1918 elections.
Women like Lynn didn't want to be ruled from Britain because they didn't want a society like Britain. Therein lies the real debate. - Yours, etc,
MEDB RUANE, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
Madam, - While The Irish Times is to be congratulated for highlighting the role of women insurgents in the 1916 Rising, it is unfortunate that Tom Clonan did not pay greater attention to historical facts.
Tom Clonan inaccurately states that "many women were sentenced to death", including Margaret Skinnider, whereas, according to the British army court martial records, only the Countess Markiewicz was sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment. Margaret Skinnider, recovering from her wounds, was too ill to be arrested in hospital and tried, as she recorded in her 1917 memoir and recalled in a 1966 newspaper article
As a researcher in the even less known field of the involvement of the Irish in Britain in the 1916 Rising - who numbered over 80 insurgents in Dublin and suffered five fatalities - I particularly regret that Tom Clonan has unfortunately trivialised Margaret Skinnider's role in the Rising. As a Scottish-born member of the Glasgow Cumann na mBan, Margaret Skinnider was actively involved well before the Rising in raiding explosive magazines and smuggling munitions to Ireland. As for her "miraculous" arrival on a bicycle in St Stephen's Green, this was part of her reconnaissance and dispatch rider role, facilitated by her Scottish accent.
Margaret Skinnider fought in uniform with the Irish Citizens' Army in the College of Surgeons. The training she had gained in a "Ladies' Empire Defence Rifle Club" made her a very effective sniper. She was shot three times while leading a sortie to burn adjacent buildings. Margaret Skinnider recovered from her wounds to play an active role in the subsequent War of Independence and was imprisoned by the Free State during the ensuing Civil War. - Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL MAGUIRE, Kingsgate Road, London.