Nora Connolly O'Brien

Nora Connolly O'Brien
Senator
In office 1957–1969
Constituency	Nominated by the Taoiseach
Personal details
Born	1892 Scotland
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Independent

Nora Connolly O'Brien (14 November 1892 – 17 June 1981) was an activist and writer; she was also a member of the Irish Senate.

Nora Connolly O'Brien was the daughter of Irish republican and socialist leader James Connolly and his wife Lillie Connolly. She was born in Edinburgh, one of seven children. She moved with her family to Dublin when she was three years old. Her formal education in Dublin extended to weekly Gaelic League classes to learn the Irish language. Otherwise, her mother, a former nursery maid, taught her how to read by the age of three and how to write, and arithmetic. The family moved to Troy, New York, when Nora was nine years old for her father to work at an insurance company. That work fell through, at which time he became increasingly political, prompting the family's eventual return to Ireland, this time to Belfast in 1910, with Nora going ahead a year earlier.

After her father's execution, the surviving Connollys tried to depart for America but were denied passports by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland government. Undeterred, they travelled to Boston via Edinburgh with Nora using the pseudonym Margaret (her middle name). In Boston, she met Seamus O'Brien, a courier for Michael Collins, who she later married in 1922. When she wanted to return to Ireland, she was denied entry but stowed away on a boat from Liverpool dressed as a boy. Her marriage to Seamus was happy but produced no children.

Nora Connolly O’Brien was heavily influenced in her political beliefs by her father James Connolly, who was committed Republican and Socialist, as was Nora. From a young age she attended her father political meetings, accompanying him on a four-month Scottish lecture tour at age 8.

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