MATHS teacher Margaret Skinnider’s talent for measuring acute angles came in handy in her new career as a sniper.

But that was only part of the life story of the incredible lady from Coatbridge.

In 1916, Skinnider took part in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and was shot three times. She survived, going on to take part in the independence war, become a teacher in Ireland, yet fighting all her life for women’s rights.

The lady revolutionary was always a strident feminist, she had been a suffragette, and in fact she helped women in Ireland achieve equal pay.

And it makes complete sense that a hundred years on, Margaret Skinnider’s story is to be told in theatre form.

The new play, Margaret Skinnider: Rebel Hart, stars actress Erin McArdie as the revolutionary, Clare Gray and Julie Hale and runs as part of the Friends of MayDay events programme in Glasgow.

“The idea for the play came about via research by Margaret Chetty,” says writer Cat Hepburn.

“Then actress Maureen Carr became involved in the development of the project with Erin.

“The idea was especially appealing to me because it’s commonly known that women are continually written out of history.

“This is a woman’s story that had to be told.”

Margaret Skinnider’s DNA, it seems, was made up of social consciousness.

“She didn’t grow up in a radical family,” says Erin.

“Her brothers didn’t go off to fight, although I think her mother believed in Irish independence.

“What happened was that young Margaret was given a book as a twelve year-old, The Irish History of Ireland. And she was capitivated by it.”

Skinnider then saw for herself the prevailing social conditions.

“We used to go there (to holiday in Country Monaghan) in a jaunting-car,” she wrote in her autobiography, Doing My Bit For Ireland.

“And on the way we passed the fine places of the rich English people, the "Planter" people we called them because they were of the stock that Cromwell brought over from England and planted on Irish soil. “We would pass, too, the small and poor homes of the Irish, with their wee bit of ground. It was then I began to feel resentment, though I was only a child. In Scotland there were no such contrasts for me to see.”

Erin McArdie reveals Skinnider had been visiting Ireland for a year before the Easter Rising.

“She became involved in the struggle because she saw the prevailing poverty, the terrible living conditions. This was not a story about religion however. Margaret Skinnider’s fight was about the treatment of the working classes.”

Indeed, historical documents don’t discuss whether Skinnider was descended from Irish Catholic or Protestant parents.

What they focus on is the commitment of the lady to progress the working class movement, to fight for women’s equality.

The actress added; “It doesn’t even matter which side you take in the Easter Rising or the Irish Civil War. Take all that away and you have a story of a woman who went off to fight a war in a foreign country.

“And having fought that war, she then took on the Irish Government over her own pension rights.

“This was a woman who wasn’t allowed to vote, but could shoot a gun and travel around with bombs hidden in her hat.”

Skinnider became a runner for the Republican movement, often dressing up as a man she delivered messages and ammunition.

She became a sniper, fighting against the British army.

1n 1916, she took part in action against the British Army under the Command of General Michael Mallin and Constance Markiewicz.

She was shot three times and her life hung in the balance.

“It seems she befriended doctors in hospital,” says Erin.

“This helped her avoid the firing squad after the collapse of the Easter Rising.”

Skinnider lived to fight another day, too off to America to raise funds for the war.

She returned to Ireland and during the War of Independence in 1921 was arrested and imprisoned, and again in 1923.

After her release from prison, she worked as a teacher in Dublin.

But she continued to fight for women’s rights. In spite of being a soldier for the Irish nationalists, she was denied the pension rights men were entitled to.

Margaret Skinnider lived a fairly long life for the period, until she was seventy nine.

She didn’t marry, or have children?

“Why would her life have to be defined by a man?” says Cat Hepburn.

It didn’t. But there is no hint of any personal relationships, male or female, in Skinnider’s biography material. Did this make her more focused, was her life all about social change?

“We don’t know,” says Erin. “What we do know is that as an older woman she signed her name in newspaper articles, ‘Margaret Skinnider 1916.’

“This was a woman who it seems was totally committed to changing the social order, to make things better for women.”

The actresses adds; “I didn’t know about Margaret Skinnider and the Easter Rising before I worked on this play.

“But having researched her life, I think I’m a bit in love with the woman. She was truly remarkable.”

* Margaret Skinnider: Rebel Heart, Oran Mor, May 2 at 7.30pm.