Apostles of Freedom are ever idolised when dead, but crucified when living.1

 

Our real geniuses and inspired apostles we never recognised, nor did we honour them. We killed them by neglect, or stoned them whilst they lived, and then went in reverent procession to their graves when they were dead.2

Connolly was not the only leading socialist to die as a result of the Easter Rising. Francis Sheehy Skeffington, pacifist, suffrage campaigner and socialist, was executed by British soldiers despite having nothing to do with the Rising. Councillor Richard O’Carroll, general secretary of the Brick and Stoneworkers’ Union, died a little over a week after he was shot by British troops, despite the fact that he had surrendered. ICA Captain Se`n Connolly was one of the first casualties of the Rising, having been shot dead at City Hall, where he was in command of the garrison. Michael Mallin was executed by firing squad. William Partridge was sentenced to twenty-five years’ penal servitude for his part in the Rising, but was released from Dartmoor in April 1917. He died three months later. Peadar Macken, once vice-president of the Dublin Trades Council, was killed by one of his own men in Boland’s Mills.3

Lillie Connolly had suffered lengthy periods of separation from her husband. In the last sixteen years of their time together Connolly was away lecturing, touring, and organising for a total of four years. After the Rising she was to be separated from him forever and she was to struggle even more than before. Roddy and Fiona were still children and, although little money was around while Connolly was alive, there was to be be even less now he was dead. Immediately after her husband’s execution, Lillie resolved to return to New York with the family and try to rebuild their life there. Permission to do so was denied. She lived in Dublin until she passed away in 1938.

Nora Connolly carried on the work of her father: she went on lecture tours of the US, was active with the IRA, maintained her republican beliefs throughout her life, and became a member of Seanad Éireann. She passed away just before her book We Shall Rise Again was published in 1981.

Roddy Connolly became the first president of the Communist Party of Ireland and later assisted in the setting up of the Workers’ Party of Ireland. He fought with the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Civil War and much later was elected to the Dáil as a Labour candidate. Like his sister, he was also a member of Seanad Éireann. Roddy was 79 years of age when he died just before Christmas 1980.

Ina Connolly was active during the Civil War and ran a first aid station with Nora in Talbot Street during the fighting in Dublin. She married Archie Heron, a trade unionist and organiser for the Labour Party who was elected to Dáil Éireann in 1937.

Moira Connolly studied medicine and became a doctor; she married Richard Beech and lived in Harrow, London.

Aideen Connolly married Hugh Ward from Monaghan and lived first in Kildare and later in Manchester.

Fiona Connolly completed her education in France and studied to become an English teacher. She carried out a large amount of research for Dorothy McArdle’s The Irish Republic. She married Leonard Wilson and was an active member of the British labour party. Fiona Connolly passed away in 1976.

The legacy James Connolly left when he was executed is unquantifiable. There are those who might argue that the Rising was premature, needless bloodletting, and was unnecessary. There are others who believe that Connolly’s passionate words, words that he transformed into deeds, gave hope to the aspirations of more than one generation and will continue to stimulate and encourage until his vision of an equitable world is achieved.

John Leslie, Connolly’s old comrade from Edinburgh, the man responsible for Connolly moving to Dublin in 1896, in a letter to William O’Brien, ISRP comrade and faithful collector of Connolly’s correspondence, stated quite profoundly in late 1916:

It seems only fair to allow Connolly have the last word. On 8 April 1916, only a couple of weeks before the Easter Rising, he penned these words in the Workers’ Republic:

We are out for Ireland for the Irish. But who are the Irish? Not the rack-renting, slum-owning landlord; not the sweating, profit-grinding capitalist; not the sleek and oily lawyer; not the prostitute pressman – the hired liars of the enemy … Not these, but the Irish working class, the only secure foundation upon which a free nation can be reared.

Notes

1 Workers’ Republic, 13 August 1898.

2 Workers’ Republic, 4 December 1915.

3 The man who shot Macken had lost his reason and ran amok, firing wildly at his comrades. He, in turn, was shot dead. It serves to illustrate the tension in Boland’s due to the lack of action within de Valera’s position.

4 NLI Ms. 13,942.