Some Key Background Events - 1858 to
1918
Note:
This page is designed to give only the briefest of background to the 1919 to
1923 period with a little more detail for the 1917 and 1918
1858 |
Irish Republican
Brotherhood (IRB) Founded |
Curran J M (1980), pg3 |
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1867 |
Fenian (IRB) Insurrection |
Curran J M (1980), pg4 |
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1873 |
IRB Re-organised and
revitalised – they decide on ‘centrist’ policy into Irish/Ireland Movement. |
Curran J M (1980), pg5 |
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1886 |
Dissident Liberals join
with Tories to defeat Gladstone/Parnell Home Rule Bill |
Curran J M (1980), pg1 |
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1890 |
Fall of Parnell |
Curran J M (1980), pg1 |
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1893 |
Gaelic League founded |
Curran J M (1980), pg2 |
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1908 |
Sinn Féin founded by Arthur
Griffith |
Curran J M (1980), pg2 |
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1909 |
ITGWU founded by Jim Larkin |
Curran J M (1980), pg2 |
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1911 |
Pop of Ireland is 4,390,319
(In 6 counties of what was to be NI 820,370 Protestants and 430,161 Catholics
- Catholic majority in Fermanagh and Tyrone) |
Curran J M (1980), pg296 |
1911 |
Opposition to Home Rule
Bill by Carson and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The Ulster Covenant, which pledges
resistance to the setting up of a Home Rule Parliament by “all means which
may be found necessary”, is signed by nearly half a million people. They are
supported by Bonar Law |
Curran J M (1980), pg6;
Townshend (2014), pg xviii |
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1912 |
Asquith (Lib) gets Home
Rule Bill passed in Westminster – It would become law in 2 years |
Curran J M (1980), pg4 |
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1913 |
Lock-out - Unions defeated
– Irish Citizens Army founded to protect strikers. |
Curran J M (1980), pg6 |
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Irish Volunteers founded by
Eoin O'Neill (+IRB) - eventually supported by Irish Party |
Curran J M (1980), pg6 |
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1914 |
200,000 in Irish Volunteers
and 100,000 in Ulster Volunteer Force.
In April, the UVF run 20,000 rifles into Larne. In July, Erskine
Childers runs 1,000 rifles into Howth for the Irish Volunteers. |
Curran J M (1980), pg7; Townshend (2014), pgs xviii
& 95 |
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Curragh Mutiny – British
army officers declare that they would resign their commissions rather than
confront the UVF. |
Townshend (2014), pg xviii |
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Split in Irish Volunteers
after war starts with National Volunteers going with Redmond and in support
of British war effort. About 13,000 left in Irish Volunteers |
Curran J M (1980), pg8 |
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Home Rule enacted but
suspended for the duration of World War I.
100,000 or more Irishmen were to serve in the British Army during WWI |
Curran J M (1980), pg8;
Townshend (2014), pg 4 |
Sept |
IRB and Connolly decide for
rebellion |
Curran J M (1980), pg9 |
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1915 |
IRB Military Council
founded and headed by Pearse |
Curran J M (1980), pg9 |
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1916 |
Easter Rising in Dublin
(Monday 24th to Saturday 29th April) - 800 turn out with about another 800
joining during the week - 60 rebels killed, 132 British (including 16 police)
and more than 300 civilians killed. |
Curran J M (1980), pg11 |
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15 rebel leaders shot and
Casement hung - 97 death sentences commuted |
Curran J M (1980), pg12 |
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Afterwards 3500 rebel
suspects arrested, 1500 let go almost immediately, 1800 interned in England
(most ~1300 let go quickly) |
Curran J M (1980), pg11 |
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Lloyd George made Prime
Minister |
Curran J M (1980), pg13 |
Dec |
All remaining internees
released - 150 prisoners still held |
Curran J M (1980), pg14 |
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1917 |
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Feb |
Count Plunkett wins seat
for Sinn Féin in Roscommon |
O'Farrell P (1997) P
(1997), pg xiv |
Mar |
John Redmond dies and
succeeded as leader of Irish Party by John Dillon |
Curran J M (1980), pg15 |
Mar
|
Irish Volunteer meeting in
Dublin leads to formation of National Executive |
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Apr |
Joseph McGuiness wins seat
for Sinn Féin in South Longford while in prison |
O'Farrell P (1997) P
(1997), pg xiv |
May |
Convention called – Sinn
Féin & Labour Party boycott - attended by Irish Party, Unionists and
Bishops - Kept going until April 1918 |
Curran J M (1980), pg15 |
June |
Remaining prisoners
released including De Valera |
Curran J M (1980), pg14 |
July |
De Valera wins seat for
Sinn Féin in East Clare. An Irish Volunteer (Daniel Scanlon) is shot
dead during victory celebrations. An RIC man (Constable Lyons) is found
guilty but no action is taken against him. |
O'Farrell P (1997), pg xiv
and pg 93 |
Aug |
WT Cosgrave wins seat in
Kilkenny for Sinn Féin |
Curran J M (1980), pg17 |
Sept |
Thomas Ashe, leader of the
successful Ashbourne ambush during 1916 Rising and President of IRB, dies due
to force-feeding in Mountjoy Prison during a hunger strike. Massive
funeral procession organised for him.
After a volley of shots was fired over his grave, Michael Collins
steeped forward to give the oration.
It was short. “Nothing additional remains to be said. That
volley which we have just heard is the only speech which it is proper to make
above the grave of a dead Fenian" |
O'Farrell P (1997), pg 4;
Townshend (2014), pg 5 |
Oct-25 |
Sinn Féin Ard Fheis - 1,700
delegates – De Valera elected President; Griffith and Michael O’Flanagan as
Vice-Presidents. Darrell Figgis and Austen Stack as joint Secretaries. Cathal Brugha, Eoin MacNeill and Michael
Collins on Standing Committee. |
Curran J M (1980), pg18;
Deasy (1973), pg 16; Townshend (2014), pg 24 |
Oct-27 |
Irish Volunteer Convention
- De Valera elected President and Cathal Brugha chief-of-staff. Michael Collins
made Director of Organisation and Richard Mulcahy made Director of Training. |
Curran J M (1980),
pg18 O'Donnoghue F (1986), pg 15; Townshend (2014), pg 6 |
1918 |
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Mar |
GHQ staff for Irish
Volunteers set up with Richard Mulcahy (formerly O/C Dublin Brigade) as
Chief-of-Staff and Michael Collins as Director of Organisation. Dick
McKee takes over as O/C Dublin Brigade. |
Hopkinson (2002), pg 16 |
Mar-25 |
British cabinet decides to
impose conscription on Ireland. When the Chief Secretary for Ireland says
that implementing conscription would “consolidate into one mass of antagonism
all the Nationalist elements in Ireland”, Walter Long says “the Irish will
talk, shout, perhaps get up a fight or two” but they “will know when they are
beaten”. |
Townshend (2014), pgs 7
& 10 |
Apr-08 |
At a British cabinet
meeting, Walter Long tells his cabinet colleagues that the Irish “race has
one marked characteristic”, they were “particularly liable to be influenced
by their immediate environment”. He
continued that in suitable surroundings it was possible to rouse them to
imperial enthusiasm but they were just as easily “filled with hatred and
anger by a few crafty sedition mongers and young priestly fanatics”. |
Townshend (2014), pg 18 |
Apr-16 |
Conscription Bill passed by
British House of Commons - heightening the conscription crisis. Duke resigns. |
O'Donnoghue (1986), pg21;
Townshend (2014), pg 10 |
May-06 |
Field Marshall French appointed Lord Lieutenant (Viceroy) and Edward Shortt as
Chief Secretary. In his own head,
French thought of himself as a military governor. He planned to establish air
strips in each of the four provinces.
With the range of military aircraft available, this would allow one
hour “to play about with either bombs or machine guns” which “ought to put
the fear of God into these playful young Sinn Feinners”. |
O'Donnoghue (1986), pg 22;
Townshend (2014), pg 11 |
Mid-May |
British cabinet decide to
withdraw threat of conscription in Ireland in the face of a united
nationalist opposition. |
Townshend (2014), pg 15 |
May-17
& 18 |
Sinn Féin leaders jailed
(including De Valera, Plunkett, Griffith and MacNeil) - "German
Plot". No evidence produced that Sinn
Féin leaders were in communication with the Germans. |
Curran J M (1980), pg19;
Townshend (2014), pg 16 |
Jul-08 |
Pat O’Sullivan and Dan
Harrington from Kilnamatyra, Co. Cork disarm two RIC men at Béal na nGleanna. |
O’Farrell (1997), pg 85 |
Aug-15 |
First edition of An tOglaċ,
journal of the Irish Volunteers appears.
It is edited by Piaras Béaslaí.
It states that the Volunteers are “the Army of the Irish Republic … an
instrument framed by Irishmen to further Ireland’s determination to be free”. |
Townshend
(2014), pg 75 |
Nov-11 |
1st World War ends |
Curran J M (1980), pg19 |
Dec |
Election in Britain and
Ireland. Lloyd George elected to head coalition of Tories & some
Liberals. |
Curran J M (1980), pg20 |
Dec-14 |
Polling day of General
Election in Great Britain and Ireland (except for University
constituencies). Sinn Féin wins 73 out of 105 seats - the remaining
seats are 23 Northern Unionists; 6 Irish Party and 3 Southern Unionists.
Sinn Féin received 48% of votes cast - however there were 26 unopposed
constituencies. (Also, it received 68%
of vote outside the six counties of north-east Ulster which were to become
Northern Ireland.) (Electorate had gone from
700,000 in 1910 to over 1.9m in 1919 with the granting of the vote to nearly
all men over 21 and the granting the vote, with qualifications, to women over
30.) Sinn Féin’s manifesto
committed it to making use “any and every means available to render impotent
the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or
otherwise”. This phrase got through
the censors. The manifests also stated that Sinn Féin stands by the 1916
proclamation in asserting the inalienable right of the Irish nation to
sovereign independence. |
Curran J M (1980), pg21;
Figgis 1927, pg 225; Walker (1992), pgs 4-9; Ozseker (2019), pgs 91-92;
Townshend (2014), pg 61 |