THE 1916 Easter Rising was a key turning point in modern Irish history. Its centenary will be a major event in Ireland and beyond. In Scotland it will be an opportunity to discuss and assess the legacy of one of its central leaders, James Connolly, born in Edinburgh in 1868. Connolly was won to socialism and trade unionism in Scotland and after he left in 1896 he retained strong links with his comrades here.

But Scottish involvement in the Rising went beyond Connolly, below right. Charles Carrigan from Denny was killed on the Friday of Easter Week, after the rebels had been forced to evacuate their burning headquarters in Dublin’s GPO. He took part in a fatal charge on British barricades in nearby Moore Street.

Scottish involvement in the Easter Rising is hardly surprising given the level of republican organisation here, particularly in the Glasgow area.

A Glasgow branch of Na Fianna Éireann, the republican youth organisation, was founded as early as April 1910, led by an activist in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the secret republican organisation.

The Gaelic Athletic Association took the lead in setting up a Glasgow unit of the Irish Volunteers in January 1914. Among those who joined was Séamus Robinson, originally from Belfast, who had come to Glasgow to serve as a monk but had quit holy orders in 1913. Robinson also joined the IRB.

Scotland became an important source of weapons for the Volunteers in Ireland, often stolen or bought from British soldiers. Prior to the Easter Rising the Volunteers carried out raids for explosives on three coal mines. One of those who helped transport the explosives to Dublin was Margaret Skinnider from Coatbridge, who smuggled detonators in her hat and wound fuse wires round her body.

August 1914 saw Britain declare war on Germany. Across Scotland there was enthusiasm for the war at its outset, but among the supporters of Irish independence “England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity.”

In January 1916, Seamus Reader of Na Fianna travelled to Belfast with two other comrades to deliver 150 rounds of rifle bullets, 200 rounds of revolver ammunition, 16 revolvers, fuse wire, 200 detonators and several pounds of explosives. Reader met Seán Mac Diarmada, one of the leaders of the Rising and among those executed, and recalled, “he very much showed his appreciation of our success in getting the material to Dublin, and said that the capture of such a high amount of high explosives by the British authorities would have ruined all their plans”. After 1916, Reader would become leader of the IRA in Scotland.

In January 1916 conscription was introduced in Britain – but not Ireland. Robinson and Carrigan were among those who left Scotland to avoid serving in the British army. They were joined by volunteers from England at Larkfield Mill in Kimmidge on the outskirts of Dublin, owned by Count Plunkett. His son, Joseph, was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising and was also subsequently executed. Robinson recorded that of 90 men at Kimmidge, 18 were from Glasgow. He also recalled: “There was a general impression on our garrison from the time we left Scotland that a fight was bound to come.”

The “Kimmidge Garrison” spent their time drilling and preparing shotgun cartridges and homemade bombs. On Easter Monday, when the Rising began, they were part of a force which took over the GPO in Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

Robinson recalled: “A number of the Glasgow and Liverpool Irish manned the bottom of Sackville Street at the bridge once the Rising had begun. Undoubtedly, it was a strange experience for native Dubliners to be chased off the bridge and quays by men with Glaswegian, Liverpudlian and Cockney accents.

"It was a Glasgow roofer Paddy Moran that Padraig Pearse [president of the newly declared Irish Republic] nominated to hoist the flag of the Irish Republic on the flagpole of the GPO.”

John McGalloghy from Glasgow had never been in Ireland before and at the start of Easter Week found himself and a Liverpudlian comrade lost in Dublin city centre, having to ask for directions to the GPO!

The Irish Volunteers restricted the role of women to cooking, carrying messages and treating the wounded. Connolly’s smaller Irish Citizens Army had no such restrictions. Margaret Skinnider had been born in Coatbridge in 1892 to Irish parents. She became a teacher, joining the suffragettes, the Ann Devlin branch of Cuman na mBan (the republican women’s organisation) and the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) and learning to shoot at the Glasgow Rifle Club, established to train women to defend the Empire!

During Easter Week she chose to join ICA units holding the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephens Green and insisted on joining the fight: “Commandant Mallin [...] finally agreed, though not at all willingly, for he did not want to let a woman run this sort of risk. My answer to this argument was that we had the same right to risk our lives as the men; that in the constitution of the Irish Republic, women were on an equality with men. For the first time in history a constitution had been written that incorporated the principle of equal suffrage.”

In her autobiography she described her role as a sniper: “It was dark there, full of smoke and the din of firing, but it was good to be in action. I could look across the tops of the trees and see the British soldiers on the roof of the Shelbourne. I could also hear their shot hailing against the roof and wall of our fortress, for in truth this building was just that. More than once I saw the man I aimed at fall.”

Skinnider was wounded in the fighting and after the surrender was sentenced to death, but after going on hunger strike she had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment. She was amnestied soon afterwards and, after release, she resumed her republican activity.

By Saturday April 29, much of central Dublin was in flames from British artillery. Forced to evacuate the GPO, Padraig Pearse ordered a surrender. Séamus Robinson was initially sentenced to death but was then interned in Wales. On release he rejoined the Volunteers in Tipperary. There in January 1919 he was one of a party of three who shot dead two policemen at Soloheadbeg guarding a quantity of gelignite. These were the opening shots of the Irish War of Independence.

By then the Irish Republican Army (as the Volunteers were now known) and Sinn Fein had a strong presence across Scotland.

On the centenary of James Connolly’s birth a plaque was erected by Edinburgh Trades Council in the Cowgate where he was born. Over the years it was vandalised and stolen many times. Edinburgh is still coming to terms with how to honour one of her most famous sons.

Among James Connolly’s Scottish comrades in the socialist movement there was confusion and embarrassment about his involvement in the Easter Rising. An important exception was the Glasgow socialist, John Maclean, who from the first defended the Rising, and Connolly’s involvement, as a blow against Empire and the war being waged in Flanders and beyond.

Chris Bambery is a Scottish political activist and commentator