Winifred (Winnie) Carney
Photo: Winifred Carney
Aged 23 at the time of the 1911 Census
Census 1911 Address: Carlisle Circus (Clifton, Co. Antrim)1
The Census report shows Winnie, her mother Sarah aged 60, two sisters Maud aged 27 and Mabel aged 25 and a grandson Jack aged 11. All persons in the household could read and write.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Antrim/Clifton/Carlisle_Circus/144725/
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai001428769/
Winifred Carney was a suffragist and an advocate for trade unions. She was an activist in the Irish Textile Workers Union and became James Connolly's personal secretary while he was based in Belfast in 1912. She was active in organising solidarity work for workers during the Dublin Lockout and she joined Cumann na mBan.
She became involved in the Easter Rising when Connolly asked her to come to Dublin to work for him. She was the only woman who participated in the initial occupation of the GPO where the Irish Citizen Army set up its headquarters. She was armed with a typewriter and a revolver. Winifred was well known for her reputation of being a crack shot. She was among the final group to leave the GPO (along with Elizabeth O’Farrell and Julia Grennan) as she would not leave the wounded Connolly. She was arrested and taken to Kilmainham Gaol and later Aylesbury prison and was released in December 1916. Winifred died in 1943 and is buried in Belfast.
Source:
Go to Rosie Hackett
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