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Radical West End
One response to “Radical West End”
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Hi, Thank you for this mailing. You are doing excellent work. In relation to the Radical West End tour, I would like to suggest the addition of a couple of courageous Irish revolutionaries who lived in Hillhead. Margaret Skinnider resided with her family at 14 Kersland Street. She taught Mathematics in St Agnes’s School in Lambhill, and during her Easter holidays in 1916, she crossed to Dublin to take part in the Easter Rising. Margaret was a suffragist, trade unionist and an active Irish republican. There’s lots to read about her on the internet. Here’s her wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Skinnider The other women I would like to highlight is Hannah ‘Pidge’ Duggan, who lived at 23 Bank Street, which was used as an arms dump by the IRA, during the Irish War of Independence. She was the Officer in Command of the Anne Devlin Branch of Cumann na mBan (Irish Women’s Council) in Glasgow. Here is some information about Pidge. I have attached a photo.Hannah DugganHannah âPidgeâ Duggan, always known as Pidge was born in Cork City in 1901 and part of her youth was spent in Dublin. At the age of fifteen, with an honours certificate from Kingâs Inn National School in Dublin, Pidge left Ireland. She and her family moved to Scotland when her father was appointed manager of the Glasgow branch of Scottish Legal Life. This was a direct result of the 1916 Rising when the firmâs Dublin offices were burnt down during the fighting. The following year sixteen-year old Pidge joined the Anne Devlin branch of Cumann na mBan attached to A Company under Captain Joe Robinson, at Risk Street, Calton. Her house in the salubrious Hillhead area of Glasgowâs west end was used to store gelignite, weapons and ammunition. War material would be left for a week or so inside cases and a Volunteer would arrive and collect it for transportation to Dublin. This happened 7 or 8 times. From 1918-19 she began storing revolvers and ammunition. The bullets were bought from soldiers serving in Maryhill Barracks. In 1920 the house was raided, after weapons belonging to the UVF were taken by the IRA from an Orange hall in Cowcaddens. Pidge recalls being arrested several times. A lot of stuff was stored up the chimney and was never found during raids. On one occasion she looked after a trunk full of revolvers and ammunition. Due to being held for several days after a raid Pidge lost what she describes as âa good jobâ.On one occasion during the Civil War when Pidge Duggan and Lizzie Morrin arrived from Glasgow to a safe house in Dublin, they were detained by Free State soldiers. The military were looking for Joe Robinson, the head of the IRA in Glasgow, and they knew that he was Pidgeâs fiancé. They tried all kinds of tactics to find out information on Joeâs movements, including bringing the girls up to the Dublin mountains and threatening to shoot them. Three times they stopped the lorry, got out their guns, made the girls kneel, and advised them to say their prayers, telling them they would shoot them on the count of ten. Eventually they dragged Pidge and Lizzie to their feet and threw them up on the lorry. The women were imprisoned for a couple of hours and then brought to a boat that was sailing for Glasgow that night. They were warned not to return to Ireland, under pain of death. The two women arrived home, slept for a few hours, got up, packed their waistcoats with guns and were back again in Dublin the following evening. I would be happy to supply you with additional information on these women. Best wishes, Stephen Coy
Radical Glasgow Tours 
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