James Connolly

JAMES CONNOLLY – A LEADER IN THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

James Connolly was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1868.
His parents were poor Irish immigrants and James began work when he was only eleven. Having little opportunity to attend school, he was self educated.

Connolly was a socialist. He believed that society should be organised in a way that protected the rights and dignity of the poorest in Europe. He published a newspaper called the Irish worker. In it he urged exploited workers to rise up together and force their emploers to give them fair wages and better working conditions.

Connolly founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party. He hoped that a free Irish Republic could be socialist in nature. He believed that “the cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland”.

He founded the Irish Citizen Army in 1913. I was founded to protect striking or protesting workers because they had been attacked brutally by police in Dublin during the 1913 lockout.

Connolly joined the Military Council that planned the Easter Rising in 1916. He and the Irish Citizen Army joined the rebellion. He was one of the seven rebel leaders who signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

On Easter Monday morning, Connolly and Patrick Pearse took control of Dublin’s General Post Office (GPO). The GPO became the rebel’s headquarters during the rising. After six days of resistance, the rebels’ headquarters during the rising. After six days of resisance, the rebels had to surrender to more numerous and better armed British forces. By then, central Dublin lay in ruins.

Connolly was condemned to death for his leading role in the Easter rebelllion. The British executed him on 12 May 1916. He had been so badly wounded during the rising that he was shot while strapped to a chair.