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The Northern Ireland home of influential socialist and Easter Rising leader James Connolly is to be turned into a museum and interpretive centre.

Plans have been set in motion to convert the house, off the Falls Road in West Belfast, into an attraction which is hoped to include recreating what it would have looked like when Connolly lived there as well as digital archives and other exhibits.

The move is understood to be backed by a number of trade unions given Connolly’s position as a founding father of the trade union movement in Ireland and is being driven by the Fáilte Feirste Thiar or Visit West Belfast group.

Those behind the plans are to apply to the Heritage Lottery Fund for money, but in a move that may provoke some controversy given Connolly’s republican credentials, Belfast City Council is also to be asked to provide around £250,000 in funding.

Connolly, who was executed for his part in the 1916 Rising, lived in Belfast for around two years from 1910 when he was a union organiser in the city.

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Jim McVeigh, a Sinn Fein councillor and trade union rep, is involved in the project.

He told Belfast Live it is expected that to buy the building, which is currently a dental surgery, renovate and extend it will cost around £1 million.

He added: “We think there’s huge heritage and tourism value in this house. James Connolly was such a significant figure not only in the trade union movement in Ireland, but internationally as well. That’s why this could attract people from across the spectrum. It could be used by schools for education as well as adding to the already existing tourism there is in West Belfast.”

Cllr McVeigh added that the “emphasis” will not be Connolly’s role as a leader of the Rising but on his role in the trade union movement and international socialism.

It is expected that the centre will not be ready ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Rising next year, however the Sinn Fein representative added that a large bronze statue of Connolly is to unveiled on the Falls in time for the centenary. The statue is to be erected outside the Falls Community Council.

Asked about the potential political fallout over Belfast Council funding of the project, Cllr McVeigh said he expects there will be some but added that a presentation of the plans made to councillors, including some unionist reps, did not prompt any immediate negative reaction.

He added: “I just think this is a very valuable project where people will learn about what Connolly stood for, about anti-sectarianism, trade union values about how there’s more that unites us than divides us.”