Lillie Connolly

Lillie Connolly ( Reynolds; 1867 or 1868 – 22 January 1938) was an Irish socialist and trade union organiser. She was the wife of James Connolly, the Irish revolutionary who was involved in the 1916 Easter Rising.

Early life The year of Connolly's birth remains uncertain but it is believed that she was born in 1867 or 1868 in Carnew, in County Wicklow, Lillie Agnes Reynolds. Her family was Protestant. Her father was John, a farm labourer, and Margaret Reynolds ( Newman). Connolly was the fourth child in the family and she had an older sister named Maggie who was born in 1861, and identical twin brothers, Johnny and George who were born in 1863. When her father died, the family moved to Rathmines, Dublin.

Education and career Connolly was a member of the Girls Friendly Society in the Church of Ireland. This society, organised by the church itself, was set up to help girls particularly from rural Ireland to find some sort of employment. This organisation found Connolly work as a domestic servant with William and Anne Wilson in Dublin. Mr Wilson was a stockbroker and notary public. He and his family lived at 35 Merrion Square East, Dublin. During the time that Connolly worked for this family, she rose from her position as a maid to that of a governess to the couple's younger children. In 1887 or 1888, They corresponded for a number of years after James returned to Scotland, and Connolly sent money to James to support him and his family.

Family life Life in Scotland Connolly moved to Scotland around 1889, arriving in Perth, where she believed James had been living. By the time she arrived he had moved to Dundee. She moved as she had the expectation of marriage, which seemed to surprise James, and he did not immediately travel to meet her. She left Perth to move to London to find employment. They were married in St John the Baptist Church, Perth, on 30 April 1890, having been granted dispensation by the Catholic Bishop of Dunkeld. Following their marriage, they moved to Edinburgh and lived at 22 West Port in the Grassmarket area. James worked as a labourer and then as a manure carter with Edinburgh Corporation.

They had seven children (six daughters and one son), with six of them reaching adulthood: Mona, born 11 April 1891 Nora, born 14 November 1892 Aideen, born 3 March 1896 Ina Mary (Mollie), born in November 1896 Moria Elizabeth, born 1 January 1899 Roderick James (Roddy), born 11 February 1901 Fiona, born 22 August 1907

During the first 4 years of their marriage, the Connollys moved 5 times to different addresses in Edinburgh. Their home at 6 Lothian Street became the centre for local socialist meetings. Owing to her better education, Connolly helped her husband's speeches and writing. She shunned the public aspects of her husband's work entirely, only attending one meeting only to flee when he took the stage out of fear. By 1895 the Connollys' financial situation was so straitened that they considered emigrating to Chile.

Life in Dublin The family returned to Dublin in May 1896 as paid organiser of the Dublin Socialist Society, first living on Queen Street and later at 76 Charlemont Street. Despite the family's poverty and the tenements in which they lived, her children recalled Connolly as maintaining a very neat appearance and being inventive in her reuse of materials to ensure the longevity of their belongings and clothing. After the premature birth of her daughter, Ina, in November 1896, Connolly visited with her former employers the Wilsons with her new baby. During this period the Connollys were very poor, and Connolly hid from her husband the various ways in which she was lent and given money to pay the rent and for food. In 1897, Connolly met Maud Gonne after James was arrested. James founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in May 1896, and in 1898 The Workers' Republic newspaper, the first Irish Socialist paper, from their home at number 54 Pimlico. The Connollys never recovered from this tragedy. Connolly and her other children passed through Ellis Island a few days later in August 1904, being reunited with her husband. The family lived in a large house at 76 Ingalls Avenue, later moving to Newark. The family moved to The Bronx in 1907, where Connolly worked as a washerwoman to supplement her husband's unstable earnings.

Return to Ireland In 1910, the family moved back to Ireland when James was offered a job as organiser in James Larkin's Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, living in the South Lotts Road in Ringsend. Connolly and the children moved to Belfast to help secure employment for their daughters, Nora and Ina. They lived at 1 Glenalina Terrace near the Falls Road. For a period, James lived at Constance Markievicz's home in Dublin. James would travel up to east Ulster every weekend. During the second visit, James told her he had been sentenced to death, to which she responded "But your beautiful life, Jim, your beautiful life!" Connolly became so distraught she had to be removed from his room by a nurse. She died four weeks later on 22 January 1938 at the age of 71. She had a state funeral in Dublin on 29 January 1938. The Irish Times reporting on her funeral wrote: "Throughout her life the late Mrs Connolly appeared but rarely in public. She was of the most retiring and modest disposition, home-loving and devoted to the welfare of her family". The Irish Press stated: "Lillie Connolly lived a hard life but she was satisfied that it should be so because she knew, even when her children were hungry and her husband unemployed, when the fire was small and everything that could be sold was gone, that this was all to be suffered in the cause of changing the miserable lives of the workers and the poor and making the world a better place for all."