Lillie Connolly
Lillie Connolly née Reynolds, was born in Carnew,County Wicklow, a Protestant. She was working as a governess to a family in Merrion Square when she met James Connolly, who was serving in the British Army in Ireland. In 1890, she married Connolly in Perth.
In the spring of 1890 they moved to Edinburgh and lived at 22 West Port. He scraped a living as a labourer and then as a manure carter with Edinburgh Corporation. At the invitation of the Scottish Socialist John Leslie Connolly returned to Dublin in May 1896 as paid organiser of the Dublin Socialist Society. He founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in May 1896, and in 1898 The Workers' Republic newspaper, the first Irish Socialist paper, from their house at number 54 Pimlico, where Lillie and James Connolly and their three daughters shared the house with six other families, a total of 30 people. Their sixth child, Roderick, was born in February 1901.
The family moved to America, where James Connolly founded the Harp newspaper, organised for the Wobblies and lectured on socialism in cities all over the United States. Their eldest daughter, Mona, was burned to death in a kitchen fire when Lillie left her minding her little sister while she and the other children went to buy the tickets for America.
They returned to Ireland, where Lillie and the children settled in Belfast while James Connolly lived weekdays in the home of Constance Markievicz, commuting to Belfast on the weekends. He was jailed during the Lockout; Lillie walked from the jail to the mansion of the Lord Lieutenant and persuaded the politician to intercede for her husband.
Three months after the execution of her husband, 15 August 1916, she was received into the Catholic Church,[1] as were other widows of the time.