His father was a stonemason, which led to Connor's jobs in New York as a sign painter, stonecutter, bronze founder and machinist.

[citation needed] It is believed he may have assisted in the manufacture of bronzes such as the Civil War monument in Town Green in South Hadley, Massachusetts, erected in 1896 and The Court of Neptune Fountain at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., completed in 1898.

In 1910, he established his own studio in Washington, D.C. From 1902 until his death, Connor produced scores of designs ranging from small portrait heads to relief panels to large civic commissions realized in bronze.

Many of the commissions he received were for civic memorials and secular figures which he cast in bronze, a pronounced departure from the Irish tradition of stone carved, church-sponsored works Connor is a recognized world-class sculptor, and his best-known work is Nuns of the Battlefield located at the intersection of Rhode Island Ave NW, M St & Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, D.C., United States.

In 1926 he was contacted by Roycroft and asked to design and cast a statue of Elbert Hubbard, who, with his wife Alice, had died in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

There is a now a "Jerome Connor Place" in Dublin, and around the corner there is a plaque in his honour on Infirmary Road, overlooking Dublin's Phoenix Park (his favourite place) with the words of his friend the poet Patrick Kavanagh: He sits in a corner of my memory With his short pipe, holding it by the bowl, And his sharp eye and his knotty fingers And his laughing soul Shining through the gaps of his crusty wall.

[8][7] A permanent exhibition space for the trust collection, along with six pieces in private hands, was built at the South Pole Inn in Annascaul, and was officially opened in April 2014.