James Connolly (Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was an Irish and Scottish socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of his day. Though proud of his Irish background, he also took a role in Scottish and American politics. He was shot by a British firing squad following h...
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James Connolly (Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was an Irish and Scottish socialist leader. He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, to Irish immigrant parents. He left school for working life at the age of 11, but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of his day. Though proud of his Irish background, he also took a role in Scottish and American politics. He was shot by a British firing squad following his involvement in the Easter Rising of 1916.
James Connolly was born on 5 June 1868, at 107 Cowgate, Edinburgh. His parents, John and Mary Connolly, had emigrated to Edinburgh from County Monaghan in the 1850s. His father worked as a manure carter, removing dung from the streets at night, and his mother was a domestic servant who suffered from chronic bronchitis and died young from that ailment.
Anti-Irish feeling at the time was so bad that Irish people were forced to live in the slums of the Cowgate and the Grassmarket which became known as ...
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