wider organisation. After the 1922 general election, and the arrival of Professor Timothy Smiddy as an accredited Ambassador in Washington, he was informed that he no longer held any recognition in the eyes of the US Government and so he returned home to Ireland. His family had at this time moved to Dublin and they set up home at Harold's Cross, never returning to Belfast. The Irish Civil War had then commenced and he formally tendered his resignation to the Free State Government. In February 1923, he joined the National Land Bank for some months and was persuaded to assist Sinn Féin with the 1923 general election. For economic reasons he retreated from politics and established a business in New York and spent some months there each year which he operated from 1923 to 1929. He was aware of political developments in Ireland, however, and would join Fianna Fáil in 1926. In 1928 Connolly was elected a member of the Free State Seanad for nine years and would serve until the Seanad's abolition in 1936. He was the leader of the Fianna Fáil delegation and the Leader of the Opposition. After the 1932 general election Éamon de Valera appointed him as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in his government and he became the first person to be a Minister while not a member of Dáil Éireann. (He was the only member of the Free State Seanad to serve as a minister, but two members of it successor Seanad Éireann served as ministers: Seán Moylan in 1957, and James Dooge in 1981–82.) As a minister, he accompanied de Valera to Geneva and the League of Nations where he attended many sessions. It was at this time that de Valera had voiced his concerns for the future of the League. After the 1933 general election he was appointed as Minister for Lands and Fisheries and was sent on a special mission by de Valera to the United States to repay the Republican bonds which had been bought in the US during the Irish War of Independence. He represented the Government and spoke at the World Economic Conference in London that year but the Conference was not a success partly because the Economic War was in progress between Ireland and the United Kingdom. His chief responsibility was overseeing the work of the Land Commission whose purpose was to re-distribute land to tenants. In