| The Struggle for Home Rule |
| 1892 | July | The Irish Parliamentary Party’s 81 members hold the balance of power between 313 Conservatives and 272 Liberals elected to the new House of Commons. |
| August 15 | William Ewart Gladstone becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain & Ireland for a fourth time. |
| August 18 | Robert Crewe-Milnes, Baron Houghton is appointed Lord Lieutenant for Ireland. |
| September 29 | The Belfast Labour Party, Ireland’s first Socialist political party, is organized. |
| During the Year | The Irish Education Act establishes free and compulsory primary schooling for children ages 6 to 14. |
| | Edward Carson becomes Solicitor-General for Ireland and is elected to Westminster as MP for Trinity College Dublin. |
| | Roger Casement joins the British Consular Service |
| 1892 | | A. Stuart of the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers wins the first Irish Amateur Open Championship held at Portrush. |
| 1893 | February 13 | Gladstone introduces his second Home Rule Bill providing for an all Ireland parliament consisting of a 48 member legislative council and a 103 member assembly to control domestic affairs. The 80 Irish members of the Westminster parliament would vote only on bills affecting Ireland. |
| April | Rioting by opponents of the Home Rule Bill leaves 32 people dead in Belfast. |
| July 31 | The Gaelic League is founded by Douglas Hyde. |
| September 1 | The House of Commons passes Gladstone’s second Home Rule Bill by a vote of 301 to 297. |
| September 9 | The Conservative majority in the House of Lords defeats Gladstone’s second Home Rule Bill by a vote of 419 to 41. |
| 1894 | March 5 | Archibald Primrose, Earl of Rosebery, becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain & Ireland. |
| March 10 | Ireland defeats Wales 3 – 0 to win the Four Nations Rugby Championship in a match at Ballynafeigh. |
| April 18 | Sir Horace Plunkett founds the Irish Agricultural Organization Society to promote the formation of cooperatives. |
| April 28 | The Irish Trades Union Congress is organized. |
| December 26 | Alfred Webb (Home Rule MP for West Waterford) is elected president of the Indian National Congress during a session in Madras. |
| During the Year | Professor John Joly of Trinity College Dublin patents the first successful method of producing color photographs from a single plate. |
| 1895 | May 25 | Oscar Wilde, having lost a libel suit against the Marquis of Queensbury, is convicted of sodomy and sentenced to 2 years at hard labor. |
| June 25 | Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain & Ireland for a third time. |
| July 8 | George Henry Cadogan, Earl Cadogan, is appointed Lord Lieutenant for Ireland. |
| July | General elections for a new House of Commons return 411 Conservatives, 177 Liberals and 82 Irish Parliamentary Party members. |
| During the Year | Thomas Cook organizes the first package tour from America to Ireland. |
| | Sapling wins the first running of The Irish Oaks, a mile and a half race for 3 year old fillies held at the Curragh. |
| 1896 | February 18 | John Dillon is elected chairman of the anti-Parnellite faction of the Irish Party in the House of Commons. |
| April 20 | A demonstration of the Lumière brothers’ cinematography is presented at the Star of Erin theatre, Dublin. |
| May 29 | The Irish Socialist Republican Party is founded in Dublin under the leadership of James Connolly. Connolly declares, “The subjection of one nation to another, as of Ireland to the authority of the British Crown, is a barrier to the free political and economic development of the subject nation, and can only serve the exploiting classes of both nations.” |
| August 15 | Harry Reynolds aka The Balbriggan Flyer wins the world cycling championship in Copenhagen, Denmark defeating Schrader of Denmark and Guillaumet of France by the narrowest of margins. Reynolds was stepping onto the podium to be presented with his medal by the King of Denmark when the band started playing “God Save The Queen” as a Union Jack was hoisted alongside the podium. Reynolds threw down his bike in anger, called the officials, pointing out that he was Irish and would not have his victory accredited to England. At his request, The Danes lowered the Union Jack, replacing it with a green flag and the band played an Irish song. |
| During the Year | John Pius Boland becomes the first Irishman to earn an Olympic gold medal with victories in the men’s singles and doubles tennis competitions in Athens. |
| 1897 | February | The first motion pictures of Irish subjects are shown by Professor John Jolly in Dublin. The titles include; People walking in Sackville Street, Traffic on Carlisle Bridge and the 13th Hussars Marching through the City". |
| May 13 | Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Jail. |
| 1898 | January 23 | William O'Brien founds the United Irish League in an effort to reunite the pro- and anti-Parnell factions of the Irish Party and to agitate for land reform. |
| June 27 – July 1 | Rival factions agree to unite and adopt the constitution of The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America at a meeting in Trenton, New Jersey. |
| July 6 | Marconi transmits the first radio signals from Ballycastle to a receiving station on Rathlin Island. |
| July 20 – 21 | The Dun Laoghaire Regatta becomes the first sporting event ever reported on radio. Marconi and his assistants transmit reports of the race from the tug Flying Huntress to the harbormaster’s house for over 700 minutes. |
| August 12 | Parliament enacts The Local Government (Ireland) Act establishing elective county and district councils along lines similar to those in Great Britain. |
| August 13 | Workers' Republic, the first Irish socialist newspaper, appears under the editorship of James Connolly. |
| September 3 – 26 | Queen Victoria visits Ireland. |
| September 20 | Thomas Clarke is released from Pentonville Prison after serving a 15 year sentence for possession of explosives and returns to New York. |
| During the Year | The Wolfe Tone Committee organises a commemoration of the centenary of the rebellion by the United Irishmen in 1798 and inaugurates an annual commemoration at the grave of Tone in Bodenstown, near Sallins, County Kildare. |
| | George Bernard Shaw declines an invitation to participate in the commemoration of the 1798 Uprising, “Until Irishmen apply themselves to what the condition of Ireland will be in 1998, they will get very little patriotism out of Yours sincerely”. |
| 1899 | March 4 | The first issue of The United Irishman edited by Arthur Griffith’s appears. |
| March 18 | The first issue of the Gaelic League's An Claidheamh Soluis appears. |
| April 1 | Otto Jaffe becomes the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Belfast. |
| October 11 | Great Britain declares war on the Transvaal and Orange Free State. 28,000 Irishmen serve in the British ranks. 400 fight with the Boers as part of Major John MacBride’s Irish Brigade. |
| October 25 | Michael Davitt resigns from the House of Commons: "I have been some five years in this House and the conclusion with which I leave it, is that no cause, however just, will find support; no wrong, however pressing or apparent, will find redress here unless backed up by force. This is the message I shall take back from this assembly to my sons." |
| 1900 | January 30 | The Irish Parliamentary Party reunites ten years after it split over Charles Stewart Parnell’s affair with Kitty O’Shea. |
| February 6 | John Redmond is elected Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party. |
| April 3 | Queen Victoria arrives at Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) for a three-day visit to Ireland. |
| April | Maud Gonne founds Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Erin) a revolutionary women’s group. |
| September 30 | Arthur Griffith founds Cumann na nGaedheal. |
| November 7 | George Wyndham becomes Chief Secretary for Ireland. |
| November 30 | Oscar Wilde dies of cerebral meningitis at age 46 in the Hôtel d’Alsace, Paris. |
| December 14 | The Limerick city council offers the freedom of the city to Paul Kruger, the former President of the South African Republic (Transvaal) and Maud Gonne, co-founder of the Transvaal Committee which supports the Afrikaners in the Boer War. |
| 1901 | January 22 | Queen Victoria dies at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight at age 81. King Edward VII accedes to the throne. The Dublin Corporation approves a resolution of condolence by a vote of 30 to 22 after initially rejecting the measure. |
| March 31 | A census shows the population of Ireland to be 4,458,775 a decline of 245.975 (5.2%) from the preceding census in 1891. |
| 1902 | January 20 | John Redmond criticizes the use of concentration camps by the British in the Boer War in a speech to the House of Commons. |
| August 16 | William Humble Ward, Earl of Dudley, becomes Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. |
| December 20 | The Land Conference between representatives of the landlords and tenants opens at the Mansion House, Dublin, under the chairmanship of Lord Dunraven. |
| 1903 | January 3 | The Land Conference recommends that the state give loans to tenant farmers to buy their land. |
| February 1 | The Irish Literary Theatre becomes the Irish National Theatre Society. |
| March 17 | Saint Patrick's Day becomes a bank holiday in Ireland. |
| July | Arthur Griffith and Maud Gonne found the National Council to organize opposition to the visit of King Edward VII. |
| July 2 | The British Isles' first road race for cars is run between Carlow and Kildare. Mikhael Jenatzy wins the race and the Gordon Bennett trophy driving a Mercedes. |
| | July 21 – August 1 King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visit Ireland. |
| August 14 | The Land Purchase Act aka the Wyndham Act allows for entire estates to be purchased by the occupying tenants subsidized by the state. |
| August | James Connolly chairs the first meeting of the Irish Socialist Labour Party. The Party quickly collapses. Connolly emigrates to America the following month. |
| December 14 | John Campbell Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for a second time. |
| During the Year | Patrick Pearse becomes editor of the Gaelic League journal An Claidheamh Soluis. |
| 1904 | January 1 | Motor vehicle regulations requiring registration of cars, driving licenses and a speed limit of 20 miles per hour are introduced. |
| January 2 | The first installment of Arthur Griffith's The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland appears in United Irishman. |
| January 12 | Redemptorist priest John Creagh delivers a sermon indicting the business methods of Limerick’s Jews and accusing them of shedding Christian blood. In a later sermon, Creagh instructs his congregation, “not to deal with Jews”. A two year boycott forces 2/3rds of the 120 member community to leave the city. Arthur Griffith’s United Irishman supports Father Creagh. Michael Davitt staunchly supports the Jews declaring in an editorial in the Irish Patriot, "The Jews have never done any injury to Ireland. Like our own race, they have endured a persecution, the records of which will forever remain a reproach to the 'Christian' nations of Europe. Ireland has no share in this black record. Our country has this proud distinction - freely acknowledged by Jewish writers - of never having resorted to this un-Christian and barbarous treatment of an unfortunate people." |
| February 15 | Roger Casement publishes a report on the inhumane treatment of native workers by the Administration of the Congo Free State. |
| April 26 – May 5 | King Edward VII visits Ireland. |
| July 24 | Cardinal Logue dedicates St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Armagh. |
| August 26 | Lord Dunraven forms the Irish Reform Association to campaign for a scheme under which a partially elected Irish Representative Council would be imbued with a modest range of powers. |
| December 2 | The United Unionist Council is formed to resist Dunraven's plan for limited devolution. |
| During the Year | The Gaelic Athletic Association bans its members from playing “foreign games” i.e. soccer and rugby.Camogie (women's hurling) is played publicly for the first time, at Navan, Co. Meath. |
| 1905 | January 2 | The first issue of William Martin Murphy’s newspaper the Irish Independent appears. |
| March 5 | George Wyndham resigns as Chief Secretary for Ireland. |
| March 8 | Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullogh,IRB revivalists, organize The Dungannon Club to promote separation from Great Britain. |
| July 25 | Guglielmo Marconi chooses Clifden, County Galway for the location of a transatlantic wireless station. The building work commences in October and takes two year to complete. |
| December 5 | Electric trams are introduced in Belfast. |
| December 14 | Historian and diplomat James Bryce becomes Chief Secretary for Ireland. |
| 1906 | January | Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal Party wins an absolute majority in the House of Commons. The support of the 82 Irish Parliamentary Party members is no longer needed to govern. |
| May 5 | The first issue of Sinn Féin appears, published and edited by Arthur Griffith. |
| August 1 | Alfred Bromwell Thomas’ Belfast City Hall is completed following eight years of construction. |
| December 13 | The first issue of The Republic is published in Belfast. The weekly paper of the Denis McCullough and Bulmer Hobson’s Dungannon Clubs calls for an independent Irish Republic. |
| 1907 | January | Augustine Birrell, legal scholar, essayist and humorist, is appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. |
| | The National Union of Dock Labourers sends James Larkin to Belfast as an organizer. Larkin recruits over 400 new members. |
| April 21 | The Dungannon Clubs and Cumann na nGaedheal merge to form the Sinn Féin League. |
| May 4 | The Irish International Exhibition opens in Ballsbridge. |
| May 6 | Belfast dock workers led by James Larkin begin a six month strike. |
| May 21 | The Irish council bill, an attempt at administrative home rule, is rejected by a nationalist conference and fails to get a second reading. |
| July 6 | The regalia of the Order of St Patrick, Irish crown jewels, are discovered stolen from Dublin Castle: they will never be recovered. |
| July 24 | 300 RIC men mutiny in support of the Belfast dockers’ and carters’ strike. |
| July 30 | 7,000 troops are sent from Dublin to replace striking members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in Belfast. Two people are killed in the rioting that follows. |
| August 11 | James Larkin launches an organizing campaign for the Nation Union of Dock Labourers in Dublin and recruits 2,700 members over the course of the following year. |
| August 12 | Troops kill four people during riots on the Falls Road, Belfast. |
| September 5 | The Sinn Fein League merges with the National Council. |
| October 16 | Marconi opens a transatlantic wireless station at Clifden, County Galway. Lord Avebury sends the inaugural message to the New York Times at 11:30 a.m. |
| November | The National Union of Dock Labourers ends the Belfast strike despite objections from James Larkin. |
| During the Year | Ernest Shackleton leads an expedition that comes within 97 miles of the South Pole. On his return he is knighted and granted £20,000 by Parliament to cover the cost of the expedition. |
| | Peadar Kearny composes the lyrics to Amhrán na bhFiann (A Soldier’s Song) which is later adopted as the national anthem of Ireland. Thomas Clarke returns to Dublin from America in December, and buys a newsagency which becomes a centre of Irish Republican Brotherhood activity. |
| 1908 | January 17 | The Sinn Fein League wins 15 seats in elections to the Dublin City Council. |
| February 21 | The Sinn Fein League loses the first parliamentary by-election it contests, North Leitrim. |
| April 7 | Herbert H. Asquith becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain & Ireland and leader of the Liberal Party following the resignation of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. |
| August 1 | The Irish University Act provides for the establishment of two Catholic universities. |
| September 8 | Patrick Pearse assisted by his brother William, Thomas MacDonagh and Con Colbert opens St Enda's, a Gaelic language school for boys, at Cullenwood House in Rathmines. |
| September 15 | A riot at a football match between Belfast Celtic and Linfield in Belfast ends with about 60 men, five suffering from gunshot wounds, seeking medical treatment. |
| November 11 | The Irish Women's Franchise League is founded by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins. |
| December 7 | The National Union of Dock Labourers suspends James Larkin due to concerns about the cost of strikes he has organized. |
| December 16 | Keel laying ceremonies for the White Star liner RMS Olympic are held at Harland & Wolff Limited, Belfast. |
| December 29 | James Larkin forms the Irish Transport Workers Union (later the Irish Transport & General Workers Union). |
| During the Year | Gaelic becomes a required subject for entrance to the National University of Ireland. |
| | Maud Gonne McBride founds the Daughters of Ireland. |
| 1909 | January 1 | Old-age pensions are introduced for people over 70 years of age. A professed memory of the “Night of the Big Wind” in 1839 is accepted as proof of eligibility for those who cannot furnish other evidence of their age. |
| March 23 | John Millington Synge dies of cancer at age 38. |
| March 31 | Keel laying ceremonies for the White Star liner RMS Titanic are held at Harland & Wolff Limited, Belfast. |
| August 16. | Constance Markievicz launches Na Fianna Éireann (Irish Republican Youth Movement). |
| December 3 | The Irish Land Act amends the 1903 Wyndham Act to allow for the principle of compulsion. |
| December 20 | Ireland's first dedicated cinema, The Volta, opens in Mary Street, Dublin under the management of James Joyce. |
| December 31 | Harry Ferguson makes the first powered flight in the British Isles at Hillsborough, County Down in airplane he built himself. |
| 1910 | January | Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s Liberal Party loses it majority in general elections for the British House of Commons and is forced to rely on the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party to remain in power. The new House consists of 274 Liberals, 82 Irish Party Nationalists, 272 Conservatives (including 18 Irish Unionists) and 40 Labour Party members. |
| February 21 | Sir Edward Carson is elected to replace Walter Long as leader of the Unionist Party. |
| May 6 | King Edward VII dies at Buckingham Palace, age 69. King George V ascends the throne of Great Britain & Ireland. The Abbey Theatre refuses to close in mourning. |
| June | James Larkin is found guilty of misappropriating funds while working as an organizer for the National Union of Dock Labourers and sentenced to "one year's hard labour". A petition from the Dublin Trades Council brings about an early release. |
| August 31 | Roger Casement arrives in Iquitos to investigate reports of atrocities by European traders against native rubber workers in the Putumayo region of Peru. |
| October 20 | The White Star liner RMS Olympic is launched at Harland & Wolff Limited, Belfast. |
| December | General elections for the British House of Commons leave the balance of power in the House unchanged. Prime Minister Asquith’s Liberal Government continues to rely on the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The new House consists of 272 Liberals, 271 Conservatives (including 17 Irish Unionists), 85 Irish Party Nationalists and 42 Labour Party members. |
| During the Year | William O'Brien forms the All for Ireland League, a party of seven Cork MPs who combine under the slogan “Conference, conciliation, consent” in an attempt to reconcile Nationalists and Unionists.James Connolly returns to Dublin from America to become national organiser for the Socialist Party of Ireland. |
| | Labour in Irish History and Labour, Nationality, and Religion,political pamphlets authored by James Connolly are published. |
| | Sir Percy Buck is appointed director of music at Trinity College. |
| | Director Sidney Olcott produces several short melodramas in County Kerry for Kalem,a touring American film company. |
| 1911 | April 2 | The census records the population of Ireland to be 4,390,219 a decline of 68,556 (1.5%) from the preceding census of 1901. 88% of persons over five years of age are literate. |
| May 31 | The White Star liner RMS Titanic is launched at Harland & Wolff Limited, Belfast. |
| June | The Irish Worker, edited by James Larkin, sells 26,000 copies in its first month of publication. |
| July 6 | Roger Casement is knighted for his work in investigating the inhumane treatment of native workers in the Congo and Peru. |
| July 7 | King George V begins a coronation tour of Ireland in Dublin. |
| August 10 | The Parliament Act receives Royal Assent. The Act deprives the House of Lords of a veto over money bills and restricts the Lords power to delay other legislation to three sessions of Parliament. |
| October 1 | A monument to Charles Stewart Parnell is unveiled in O’Connell Street, Dublin. The larger than life sculpture is the last public monument completed by Augustus Saint Gaudens. The 57 foot obelisk is the work of architect Henry Bacon. |
| During the Year | Patrick Heeney composes the musical accompaniment to Peadar Kearny’s lyrical composition, Amhran na bhFiann (A Soldier’s Song) which is later adopted as the Irish national anthem.James Connolly moves to Belfast to organize for the Irish General & Transport Workers Union. |
| | Women are granted the right to stand for election to county councils. |
| 1912 | January | Winston Churchill accepts an invitation from Ulster Liberal Association to share a platform with John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and Joe Devlin, the Nationalist MP for West Belfast, and to speak in support of Home Rule. Belfast’s Ulster Hall, where Churchill’s father Lord Randolph delivered an 1886 speech urging Unionists, “to wait and watch, organize and prepare so that the catastrophe of Home Rule might not come upon them as a thief in the night” is the chosen venue. February |
| | The Ulster Liberals change the venue for Winston Churchill’s Home Rule appearance to Celtic Park in nationalist West Belfast after Unionists rent Ulster Hall for the day prior to his scheduled appearance and threaten to resist eviction the following day. |
| February 6 | The Cabinet rejects a proposal by Winston Churchill and David Lloyd-George to exclude Ulster from the Home Rule bill. |
| February 8 | Churchill’s appearance in Belfast is marked by a hostile but peaceful reception. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Augustine Birrell, dispatches five infantry battalions and two companies of cavalry to assist the local police in maintaining order. |
| April 9 | A mass gathering of Unionists and Orangemen is staged near Belfast to protest the impending introduction of a third Home Rule bill. Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar Law, tells them that there is, “no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I would not be prepared to support them.” |
| April 11 | RMS Titanic makes a stop in Queenstown (Cobh) before departing on the final leg of its maiden voyage to New York. |
| | The Government introduces the Third Home Rule Bill in the British House of Commons. |
| April 15 | RMS Titanic collides with an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic with the loss of 1,513 lives, including 187 Irish. |
| June 28 | The Irish Labour Party is founded at conference of the Irish Trade Union Congress in Clonmel at the instigation of James Connolly, Jim Larkin and William O'Brien. |
| September 28 | Sir Edward Carson leads 471,414 signers of the Solemn League and Covenant in Ulster in pledging to use, "all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a home rule parliament in Ireland". |
| November | Winston Churchill gratuitously taunts Unionist MPs by waving his handkerchief at them during a Commons debate on the Home Rule bill. Ronald McNeill hurls a small bound copy of Standing Orders striking Churchill in the head. |
| During the Year | Denys Corbett Wilson, of Kilkenny, makes the first crossing of the Irish Sea from England to Ireland in an airplane. |
| | Liberty Hall on Eden Quay, Dublin is acquired by The Irish Transport and General Workers Union. |
| | James Larkin is elected to the Dublin City Council. Larkin is removed a month later having been declared ineligible to hold office as a convicted felon. |
| 1913 | January 17 | The Third Home Rule Bill passes on first reading in the House of Commons. |
| January 30 | The Third Home Rule Bill is rejected on first reading the House of Lords. |
| January 31 | The Ulster Unionist Council announced the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force under the command of Sir George Richardson. Sir Edward Carson contributes £10,000 and 90,000 men are quickly recruited into the ranks. |
| July 7 | The Third Home Rule Bill is approved on second reading by the House of Commons. |
| July 15 | The Third Home Rule Bill is rejected on second reading by the House of Lords. |
| August 15 | The Dublin Employers' Federation, led by William Martin Murphy publisher of the Irish Independent, threatens workers with dismissal unless they withdraw from the Irish Transport & General Workers Union. |
| August 31 | The Dublin Metropolitan Police kill two strikers and injure 300 people in a baton charge on O'Connell Street, after James Larkin, in disguise, has addresses a banned public meeting from the balcony of the Imperial Hotel. |
| September 2 | The Dublin Employers’ Federation begins locking out workers who refuse to leave the Irish Transport & General Workers Union. |
| September 3 | James Connolly addresses a banned meeting of locked out workers. Connolly is arrested and sentenced to 3 months in jail after refusing to accept bail for good behavior. |
| | Police charge a crowd of workers gathered outside Liberty Hall, headquarters of the Irish Transport & General Workers Union killing two people and injuring hundreds. |
| September 22 | 25,000 Dublin workers are locked out or on strike. James Connolly begins a hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison becoming the first Irish political prisoner to use that tactic as a weapon of protest. |
| September 23 | Sir Edward Carson threatens to establish a, “Provisional Government of Ulster”, if the British Government attempts to apply the Home Rule Bill to the province.October 7 |
| | George Russell speaks out against the owners’ Lockout with an “Open Letter to the Masters of Dublin” in the Irish Times. |
| October 27 | James Larkin is imprisoned for sedition. James Connolly assumes leadership of the workers. |
| November | George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion premiers at the Lessing Theatre, Berlin with a performance in German. |
| November 19 | The Irish Citizen Army is founded James Larkin and James Connolly. |
| November 25 | The Irish National Volunteers is founded at a mass meeting at the Rotunda, Dublin |
| December | Patrick Pearse joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood. |
| 1914 | January 30 | Most of Dublin's locked-out and striking workers have returned to work on the best terms they can obtain. James Larkin admits, “we are beaten, we will make no bones about it; but we are not too badly beaten still to fight." |
| February 26 | The White Star liner, RMS Britannic, is launched at Harland & Wolff, Limited, Belfast. |
| March | Winston Churchill delivers a bellicose anti-Unionist speech in Bradford. The 3rd Battle Squadron is dispatched to the Isle of Arran for the avowed purpose of, “overawing”, Unionist Ulster.Sir Arthur Paget, Commander-in-Chief of troops in Ireland, is summoned to London and instructed to move 800 men into Ulster to reinforce depots and arms stores. Preparations to suppress a possible rebellion are also discussed. |
| March 20 | General Paget returns to Ireland and informs his brigadiers that operations against Ulster are imminent. He indicates that officers with homes in Ulster will be permitted to absent themselves without compromising their careers and adds that any others who are not prepared to carry out their duty will immediately be dismissed from the service. The brigadiers report that 57 of the 70 officers consulted have elected for dismissal. The incident is reported in the press as the, “Curragh Mutiny”, but orders are never issued and Prime Minister Asquith dismisses it as a misunderstanding. |
| April 2 | Cumann na mBan is founded as a women's counterpart to the Irish Volunteers. |
| | April 24 – 25 Major Fred Crawford, a Belfast businessman, arranges the smuggling of 35,000 rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition for the Ulster Volunteers into Larne from Germany. |
| May 25 | The Third Home Rule Bill is approved on third reading by the House of Commons. |
| June | John Redmond gives his support to the Irish National Volunteers and membership rises to 160,000. |
| July 8 | The House of Lords alters the Home Rule Bill to permanently exclude all of Ulster. |
| July 17 | Sean O’Casey resigns from the Irish Citizen Army after his resolution demanding that Constance Markievicz disassociate herself from either the Citizen Army or the Irish Volunteers is defeated. O’Casey considers the leadership of the Volunteers, “inimical to the first interests of Labour” and declares that, “many [Volunteers], no doubt, preferred Caithlin Ni Houlihan in a respectable dress than a Caithlin Ni Houlihan in the garb of a working woman.” |
| July 26 | Erskine Childers sails into Howth, County Dublin, on his yatch Asgard with 900 rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition from Germany for the Irish Volunteers. A detachment of the King's Own Scottish Borderers is dispatched to intercept the weapons but is diverted from its mission by stone throwing civilians along Bachelor's Walk. The Borders open fire, three people are killed and forty injured. Childers’ cargo is delivered as planned. During the Year |
| | John Joly persuades the Royal Dublin Society to establish the Radium Institute to supply hospitals with radon gas in glass needles for use in cancer therapy after successfully treating an otherwise intractable "facial rodent ulcer" on a patient at Dr. Steeven’s Hospital with radium bromide. |
