William Finnie

 

For three days in mid January 1916 James Connolly went missing.

His Transport Union colleagues in Liberty Hall and his family thought that he had been “lifted” by detectives from Dublin Castle. The British Administration in Dublin and London regarded Connolly as one of the most dangerous of the many agitators active in Dublin at that time.

 

In fact he had been “kidnapped” by the IRB Military Council and taken to a safe house in Dolphin’s Barn. For three days he met and argued with Joseph Plunkett, Patrick Pearse and Séan MacDiarmada. They convinced him not to proceed with the threatened Irish Citizen Army Uprising, but to join the ICA with the Irish Volunteers in the planned Easter Uprising.

At the end of the three-day meeting Connolly became a member of the IRB Military Council.

This meeting in January 1916 had profound implications for the

future of Socialism and Social Democratic Politics in Ireland.