The circle which gravitated around the hall included Republicans, farmers, and trade unionists, and the hall was also used as a Dáil Court (a judicial system run by Sinn Féin to counter the British court system). Around the same time Gralton built on his own land a Pearse–Connolly memorial hall with the aid of local volunteer labour, which was used to provide educational classes for young school-leavers and social events. As he did this, Gralton tried to instil in those recruits some of his social and political views. Gralton raised funds for the newly created Irish Republican Army as well as recruiting and training volunteers himself. In 1922 Gralton returned to Ireland and Leitrim to fight in the Irish War of Independence. 1919 Gralton joined the newly founded Communist Party USA, as well as setting up his own James Connolly clubs. As Gralton became more absorbed in American culture and society he came to feel that Irish society was insular and conservative in comparison and also became unsure about some of the aspects of Irish Nationalism. He later worked around as a taxi-driver and barman. Gralton emigrated to the United States in 1909, where he was granted US citizenship after briefly joining the US Navy. However, after being disciplined for refusing to serve with his regiment in India, he deserted and spent some time working in the Liverpool docks and Welsh coalmines. Gralton later went to work in Dublin as a bartender before joining the British army, serving first in the Royal Irish Regiment. He received his only formal education at Kiltoghert national school, which he left at the age of 12 to go work as a grocery boy in Carrick-on-Shannon. The people were too poor to buy fertiliser for the crops so they had to burn some of the topsoil, and this left the land poor and shallow. Gralton was reared on a small farm of about twenty-five acres of bad land, which was surrounded by some good land. There were four girls and three boys in the family: Winnie, Mary Ann, Alice and Maggie Kate were the girls, and the boys were Jimmy, Charles and a little boy who died young.
His parents were Micheal Gralton and Alice Campbell. James Gralton was born on 17 April 1886 in the townland of Effrinagh, Parish of Kiltoghert, about six miles from Carrick-on-Shannon in County Leitrim. James Gralton (17 April 1886 – 29 December 1945) was an Irish socialist leader who became a United States citizen after emigrating in 1909 and, later, the only Irishman ever deported from independent Ireland.
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