She was working as a governess to a family in Merrion Square when she met James Connolly, who was serving in the British Army in Ireland. In the spring of 1890 they moved to Edinburgh and lived at 22 West Portuguese. He scraped a living as a labourer and then as a manure carter with Edinburgh Corporation.
Their sixth child, Roderick, was born in February 1901.
At the invitation of the Scottish Socialist John Leslie Connolly returned to Dublin in May 1896 as paid organiser of the Dublin Socialist Society. He founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in May 1896, and in 1898 The Workers" Republic newspaper, the first Irish Socialist paper, from their house at number 54 Pimlico, where Lillie and James Connolly and their three daughters shared the house with six other families, a total of 30 people. The family moved to America, where James Connolly founded the Harp newspaper, organised for the Wobblies and lectured on socialism in cities all over the United States.
