April 9, 2016

Chronology of the 1916 Rising and associated events


From 1916 Portraits and Lives, edited by Lawrence William White and James Quinn

 

1907

 

NOVEMBER

Thomas J. Clarke returns to Ireland from America and helps to invigorate the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)

 

1909

 

16 AUGUST

Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson found Na Fianna Éireann

 

10 DECEMBER

H. H. Asquith, the Liberal prime minister, promises ‘self-government’ for Ireland

 

1910

 

JANUARY

UK general election: Liberal party fails to win an overall majority and requires the support of John Redmond’s 70-strong Irish Parliamentary Party to govern

 

26 JULY

James Connolly returns to Ireland from America

 

DECEMBER

Another UK general election; Liberals still the largest party with Irish Parliamentary Party holding the balance of power

 

1912

 

9 APRIL

At a unionist demonstration at Balmoral, near Belfast, Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative party, pledges the support of British unionists to Ulster unionist resistance to home rule

 

11 APRIL

Asquith introduces home rule bill in House of Commons

 

28 SEPTEMBER

Unionists throughout Ulster sign the Solemn League and Covenant to resist home rule

 

1913

 

16 JANUARY

Third reading of home rule bill carried in House of Commons

 

30 JANUARY

Home rule bill defeated in House of Lords

 

31 JANUARY

Ulster Volunteer Force founded

 

15 JULY

After passing in the Commons, home rule bill again defeated in the Lords

 

26 AUGUST

Tram workers of James Larkin’s Irish Transport and General Workers Union go on strike – a general lockout of union members follows

 

19 NOVEMBER

Irish Citizen Army founded by trade unionists in Dublin

 

25 NOVEMBER

Irish Volunteers formed at meeting in Dublin, presided over by Eoin MacNeill

 

1914

 

20 MARCH

‘Curragh mutiny’ – General Hubert Gough and most of his officers in the 3rd Cavalry Brigade announce their unwillingness to enforce home rule on Ulster

 

2 APRIL

Cumann na mBan founded as women’s auxiliary to Irish Volunteers

 

24–25 APRIL

Ulster Volunteer Force gun-running: large quantity of rifles landed at Larne, Donaghadee and Bangor

 

25 MAY

Home rule bill passes through Commons for third time

 

28 JUNE

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Slav nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia

 

10 JULY

Ulster unionist provisional government meets in Belfast

 

21–24 JULY

Government, nationalists and unionists fail to reach agreement on the status of Ulster at Buckingham Palace conference

 

26 JULY

Rifles for Irish Volunteers landed at Howth; British troops who failed to disarm Volunteers fire on a crowd at Bachelor’s Walk, Dublin, killing four and wounding thirty

 

1 AUGUST

More rifles for Irish Volunteers landed at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow

 

4 AUGUST

UK declares war on Germany after German invasion of Belgium

 

9 SEPTEMBER

At a conference in Dublin, militant nationalists (mostly IRB) discuss mounting an insurrection during the war

 

18 SEPTEMBER

Government of Ireland act, 1914, suspends the introduction of home rule for the duration of the war

 

20 SEPTEMBER

At Woodenbridge, Co. Wicklow, John Redmond encourages Irish Volunteers to join the British army

 

24 SEPTEMBER

Eoin MacNeill and other Volunteer leaders repudiate Redmond’s leadership; Volunteers split, the majority forming Redmond’s ‘National Volunteers’

 

OCTOBER

Volunteer minority, still calling themselves the Irish Volunteers, re-organise with Eoin MacNeill as chief of staff, Patrick Pearse as director of military organisation, Joseph Mary Plunkett as director of military operations, and Thomas MacDonagh as director of training

 

Sir Roger Casement travels to Berlin to seek German help for an Irish insurrection against British rule

 

1915

 

MAY

IRB creates a military committee of Pearse, Plunkett and Éamonn Ceannt to begin planning for an armed insurrection

 

1 AUGUST

Pearse gives stirring graveside oration at the funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa warning that ‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’ [link]

 

DECEMBER

IRB military council of Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Pearse, Plunkett and Ceannt formed

 

1916

 

JANUARY

IRB supreme council gives approval for armed insurrection

 

19–22 JANUARY

James Connolly confers with IRB military council and is co-opted into their plans (Thomas MacDonagh co-opted in April)

 

3 APRIL

Pearse issues orders to Volunteers throughout Ireland for manoeuvres beginning on Easter Sunday (23 April)

 

20 APRIL

A trawler, the Aud, arrives in Tralee Bay with German arms for the Irish Volunteers and is arrested by a British patrol ship

 

21 APRIL

Sir Roger Casement lands from a German submarine at Banna Strand, Co. Kerry, and is arrested

 

22 APRIL

Eoin MacNeill, of the Irish Volunteers, learns of planned insurrection and countermands orders for Easter Sunday manoeuvres

 

23 APRIL

Military council meets at Liberty Hall and decides to go ahead with insurrection on Easter Monday (24 April); a revolutionary proclamation is signed by the seven members of the council

 

24 APRIL

GPO and several other buildings in Dublin seized by Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army

 

An attack on Dublin Castle by a Citizen Army unit is repulsed; the unit briefly holds City Hall until overwhelmed later that day

 

25 APRIL

British army reinforcements arrive in Dublin and surround insurgent positions; martial law declared in Dublin

 

Citizen Army force in St Stephen’s Green comes under heavy fire and withdraws to College of Surgeons

 

26 APRIL

Liberty Hall destroyed and GPO damaged by British shelling

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and two other prisoners summarily executed at Portobello barracks on orders of Captain J. C. Bowen-Colthurst [link]

Wexford Volunteers take over Enniscorthy

Heavy fighting as British troops advance on insurgent positions around the Four Courts and the South Dublin Union

Unable to hold the Mendicity Institute on Usher’s Island, the small Volunteer garrison under Seán Heuston surrenders

 

26–27 APRIL

British army reinforcements advancing on Mount Street bridge suffer heavy casualties at the hands of Volunteers from Éamon de Valera’s 3rd battalion

 

28 APRIL

Volunteers in north County Dublin under Thomas Ashe and Richard Mulcahy seize Ashbourne Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks and ambush an RIC patrol sent to re-take it

GPO on fire; insurgents evacuate building and set up their headquarters in 16 Moore Street

 

29 APRIL

Pearse and Connolly agree to unconditional surrender, and send orders to other insurgent posts to do likewise

 

30 APRIL

Final surrenders of rebel commandants in Dublin end the rising; 64 insurgents, 132 crown forces and about 230 civilians killed

 

2–9 MAY

Courts martial of 187 leading insurgents; 88 sentenced to death, with 73 commuted to various terms of imprisonment. Over 400 insurgents sent to Britain to be interned; over 3,000 other suspects also arrested, of whom about half are interned

 

2 MAY

Gun battle ensues between Kent family and RIC at Bawnard House, Castlelyons, near Fermoy, Co. Cork, when Kents resist arrest

 

3 MAY

Executions of Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh

 

4–12 MAY

Executions of remaining insurgents; Connolly and Mac Diarmada the last to be shot

 

3 AUGUST

Found guilty of treason, Roger Casement is hanged in Pentonville jail, London

 

22 DECEMBER

Release from Frongoch camp and Reading jail of remaining untried Irish political prisoners; convicted insurgents remain imprisoned [their trades]

 

1917

 

16 JUNE

Remaining 120 Irish prisoners, including Eoin MacNeill, de Valera and Markievicz, released from British jails

 

25 SEPTEMBER

Thomas Ashe dies in Mountjoy jail after forced feeding

 

26 OCTOBER

De Valera elected president of Sinn Féin

 

1918

 

18 APRIL

A broad front of Irish nationalists oppose conscription at Mansion House conference

 

17–18 MAY

‘German plot’ arrests of Sinn Féin leaders

 

11 NOVEMBER

Great War ends

 

14–28 DECEMBER

General election: Sinn Féin wins 73 of 105 Irish seats [manifesto]

 

1919

 

21 JANUARY

First meeting of Dáil Éireann at Mansion House, Dublin, declares independence

Irish Volunteer attack on RIC at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary kills two policemen and marks the beginning of the war of independence [link]

 

1920

 

23 DECEMBER

Government of Ireland Act, 1920, provides for two subordinate Irish parliaments, one for six Ulster counties, the other for the remainder of the country

 

1921

 

22 JUNE

George V opens Northern Ireland parliament in Belfast

 

9 JULY

Truce ends Irish war of independence

 

6 DECEMBER

Anglo–Irish treaty signed by British government and Sinn Féin delegates in London [link]

 

1922

 

7 JANUARY

Dáil Éireann approves Anglo–Irish treaty by 64 votes to 57 [Constans de Markievics against the treaty]

 

14 JANUARY

Irish Free State provisional government elected by protreaty representatives; Michael Collins elected chairman

 

28 JUNE

Free State troops attack antitreaty forces in Four Courts, beginning the civil war

 

20 JULY

Limerick and Waterford taken by Free State troops (Cork taken 11 August)

 

12 AUGUST

Arthur Griffith, president of Dáil Éireann, dies of cerebral haemorrhage

 

22 AUGUST

Michael Collins killed in ambush at Béal na Bláth, Co. Cork

 

17 NOVEMBER

First of 77 executions of anti-treatyites by Free State government (last on 2 May 1923) [link]

 

6 DECEMBER

Formal establishment of Irish Free State with W. T. Cosgrave as president of the executive council

 

1923

 

24 MAY

De Valera orders anti-treatyites to cease armed operations, ending the civil war