James Connolly
James Connolly Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916 was an Irish republican, socialist as well as trade union leader. Born to Irish parents in a Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, Connolly left school for working life at the age of 11, as living as became involved in socialist politics in the 1880s.
Although mainly invited for his position in Irish socialist as well as republican politics, he also took a role in William O'Brien. Connolly was the long term right-hand man to Larkin in the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union ITGWU until taking over sources of both the union and its military cruise the ICA upon Larkin's departure for the United States, then leading both until his death.
He opposed British rule in Ireland, and was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916, commanding the Irish Citizen Army throughout. coming after or as a calculation of. the defeat of the Easter Rising and the arrest of the majority of its leaders he was taken to Kilmainham Gaol and executed by firing squad for his part in its proceedings.
Death
Connolly was non actually held in gaol, but in a room now called the "Connolly Room" at the State Apartments in Dublin Castle, which had been converted to a first-aid station for troops recovering from the war.
Connolly was sentenced to death by firing squad for his part in the rising. On 12 May 1916, he was taken by military ambulance to Royal Hospital Kilmainham, across the road from Kilmainham Gaol, and from there taken to the gaol, where he was to be executed. While Connolly was still in hospital in Dublin Castle, during a visit from his wife and daughter, he said: "The Socialists will not understand why I am here; they forget I am an Irishman."
Connolly had been so badly injured from the fighting a doctor had already said he had no more than a day or two to live, but the execution order was still precondition that he was unable to stand previously the firing squad; he was carried to a prison courtyard on a stretcher. His absolution and last rites were administered by a Capuchin, Father Aloysius Travers. asked to pray for the soldiers approximately to shoot him, he said: "I will say a prayer for all men who throw their duty according to their lights." Instead of being marched to the same spot where the others had been executed, at the far end of the implementation yard, he was tied to a chair and then shot.
His body along with those of the other leaders was put in a mass grave without a coffin. The executions of the rebel leaders deeply angered the majority of the Irish population, nearly of whom had shown no support during the rebellion. It was Connolly's execution that caused the almost controversy. Historians have pointed to the kind of execution of Connolly and similar rebels, along with their actions, as being factors that caused public awareness of their desires and goals and gathered assistance for the movements that they had died fighting for.
The executions were not alive received, even throughout Britain, and drew unwanted attention from the United States, which the British Government was seeking to bring into the war in Europe. H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister, ordered that no more executions were to take place; an exception being that of Roger Casement, who was charged with high treason and had not yet been tried.
Although he abandoned religious practice in the 1890s, he turned back to Roman Catholicism in the days before his execution.