#OnThisDay 1981 Nora Connolly O’Brien, Cumann na mBan member, Irish republican, politician & daughter to executed leader James Connolly, passed away.
“On 22 April she led the Cumann na mBan first aid corps that accompanied the Belfast Volunteers to the Northern Division’s mobilisation in Co. Tyrone. On receipt of the countermanding order from Eoin MacNeill, she travelled by night train to Dublin to obtain clarification from her father. On Easter Monday morning (24 April) she returned to Tyrone bearing a counter-order from Patrick Pearse. After fruitless efforts to remuster the Northern Division, she and her sister Ina returned to Dublin, walking most of the distance from Dundalk owing to rail disruptions, passing a night in a field near Balbriggan, and arriving in the capital hours after the insurgents’ surrender. She accompanied her mother on a final visit to her wounded father imprisoned in Dublin castle, hours before his execution (12 May).”
Nora is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
The Irish at War 