Lillie Connolly

Who is Lillie Connolly?

Lillie Connolly née Reynolds, was born in County Wicklow, a Protestant. She met James Connolly while the latter was serving in the British Army in Ireland. She was working as a domestic servant in Dublin. They were engaged in 1888 and the following years Connolly discharged himself from the British Army and went back to Scotland. In 1890, he and Lillie Reynolds were wed in Perth.

In the Spring of 1890, James and Lillie moved to Edinburgh and lived at 22 West Port, and joined his father and brother working as labourers and then as a manure carter with Edinburgh Corporation, on a strictly temporary and casual basis.

At the invitation of the Scottish Socialist, John Leslie, he came to Dublin in May 1896 as paid organizer of the Dublin Socialist Society for £1 a week. James and Lillie Connolly and their three daughters, Nora, Mona and Aideen set sail for Dublin in 1896, where he founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in May 1896. In 1898, James Connolly had founded The Workers' Republic newspaper, the first Irish Socialist paper, from his house at number 54 Pimlico, where he lived with his wife and three daughters. Six other families, a total of 30 people, also lived in number 54 Pimlico, at the same time.