Connolly, James (1870-1916)

Irish socialist and revolutionary. Born in Edinburgh of immigrant Irish parents, Connolly combined a Marx-inspired socialism with a Fenian-inspired republicanism. He helped found the Irish Socialist Republican Party in Dublin in 1896, and organized a strike of transport workers in 1913 with the Irish Labour leader James Larkin. His Irish Citizen Army took part in the Easter Rising against British rule in 1916, for which he was executed by the British.

After establishing the Irish Socialist Republican Party and founding The Workers' Republic, the first Irish socialist paper, Connolly grew disillusioned with his political progress and moved to the USA in 1903, where he was active in the International Workers of the World. Returning to Ireland in 1910, he became involved in trade-union, industrial, and political affairs in Belfast and Dublin and played a key role in the establishment the Irish Labour Party.

Connolly the international socialist opposed World War I, but Connolly the Irish republican hoped to take advantage of it to begin an anti-British rebellion. Consequently he committed his small Irish Citizen Army to a joint operation with the Irish Republican Brotherhood that resulted in the Easter Rising. Connolly was a signatory of the declaration of the Irish Republic, and was responsible for its more socially radical sentiments. He was commandant general of the Dublin Division in the rising and was wounded in the fighting. News of his execution while sitting propped-up in a chair was said to have fuelled the indignation of Irish nationalists at the government's treatment of the rebels.

His books Irish History (1910) and The Reconquest of Ireland (1915), exercised profound influence on Irish socialist thought long after his death.