1914 in Ireland

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{{YearInIrelandNav|1914}}

{{Use Hiberno-English|date=August 2022}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}

Events from the year 1914 in Ireland.

Events

  • 17 January – Edward Carson inspected a parade of the East Belfast Regiment of the Ulster Volunteers.
  • 20 February – The Fethard-on-Sea life-boat capsized on service off the County Wexford coast: nine crew were lost.{{cite news|first=Dan |last=Walsh |title=Lifeboat men pay the ultimate price |url=http://www.wexfordecho.ie/news/story/?trs=cwidgbojgb |work=Wexford Echo |date=2008-02-21 |access-date=2010-09-07 }}{{dead link|date=June 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
  • 26 February – {{HMHS|Britannic}}, designed as the third and largest {{Sclass|Olympic|ocean liner}}, was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyards in Belfast.
  • 1 March – Three outbreaks of foot and mouth disease were confirmed in County Cork.
  • 9 March – The British Prime Minister proposed to allow the Ulster counties to hold a vote on whether or not to join a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.
  • 20 March – Curragh incident: British Army officers stationed in Ireland at the Curragh Camp resigned their commissions rather than be ordered to resist action by Unionist Ulster Volunteers if the Government of Ireland Act ("Third Home Rule Bill") was passed in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.{{cite book|first=Peter|last=Cottrell|title=The War for Ireland, 1913–1923|url=https://archive.org/details/warforirelandgen00cott|url-access=limited|location=Oxford|publisher=Osprey|year=2009|isbn=978-1-84603-9966|pages=[https://archive.org/details/warforirelandgen00cott/page/n14 14]–15}} The government backs down and they are reinstated.
  • 2 April – Cumann na mBan, the Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation, was formed in Dublin as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers.Cumann na mBan manifesto (1914), in Bourke (ed.), FDA, vol V, p.104.
  • 6 April – The second reading of the Home Rule Bill was carried in Westminster.
  • 24–25 April – Larne Gun Running: 35,000 rifles and over 3 million rounds of ammunition from a German dealer were landed at Larne, Bangor, and Donaghadee for the Unionist Ulster Volunteers and were quickly distributed around Ulster by motor transport.
  • 25 May – the House of Commons of the United Kingdom passed the Government of Ireland Bill.
  • 23 June—14 July – the Government of Ireland Bill passed through the House of Lords. It allowed Ulster counties to vote on whether or not they wanted to come under Dublin's jurisdiction. Because of the outbreak of war in Europe and later developments in Ireland, the Act was never implemented in its original form and the wishes of counties Fermanagh and Tyrone were eventually ignored.
  • 10 July – The Provisional Government of Ulster met for the first time in the Ulster Hall. It vowed to keep Ulster in trust for the King and the British constitution.{{cite news|title=Sir E. Carson In Belfast|newspaper=The Times|location=London|date=1914-07-11|page=8|issue=40573}}
  • 21 July – A conference (called on 19 July) was opened at Buckingham Palace by the King. It was hoped that unionists and nationalists attending would break the impasse over Home Rule.
  • 24 July – The Buckingham Palace conference ended in failure. Nationalists and Unionists present could not agree in principle or in detail.
  • 26 July – Howth gun-running: Former British civil servant and novelist Erskine Childers and his wife Molly sailed into Howth in his yacht {{ship||Asgard|yacht|2}} and landed 2,500 guns for the nationalist Irish Volunteers from a German dealer. Troops of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, returning to Dublin having been called out to assist police in attempting to prevent the Volunteers from moving the arms to the city, perpetrated the Bachelor's Walk massacre, firing on a crowd of protestors at Bachelors Walk, killing three; a fourth man died later from bayonet wounds and more than 30 others were injured.{{cite book|editor=Connolly, S. J.|title=Oxford Companion to Irish History|publisher=Oxford University Press|edition=2nd|year=2007|isbn=978-0-19-923483-7}}
  • 4 August – World War I: Declaration of war by the United Kingdom on the German Empire.{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-14-102715-0|year=2006}}
  • September – The Ulster Division was formed as a division of the British New Army from Ulster Volunteers.
  • 18 September – The Government of Ireland Act (the Home Rule Act) received Royal Assent (although George V had contemplated refusing it){{cite book|title=The Monarchy and the Constitution|first=Vernon|last=Bogdanor|author-link=Vernon Bogdanor|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|isbn=0-19-829334-8|page=131|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HEC6Ivq2JK8C}} but was postponed (as projected on 30 July) for the duration of World War I by the simultaneous Suspensory Act and in practice never came into effect in its original form.
  • 20 September – In a speech at Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, John Redmond called on members of the Irish Volunteers to go "wherever the firing line extends". The majority did so, fighting in the 10th and 16th (Irish) Division alongside their volunteer counterparts from the 36th (Ulster) Division; the rump Irish Volunteers split off on 24 September.
  • 2 October – German spy Carl Hans Lody was arrested at the Great Southern Hotel, Killarney.{{cite book|title=Shot in the Tower: the story of the spies executed in the Tower of London during the First World War|last=Sellers|first=Leonard|page=31|publisher=Leo Cooper|location=London|year=1997|isbn=9780850525533}}
  • 18 October – The British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet took shelter in Lough Swilly while Scapa Flow was secured against submarine attack.{{cite web|title=Royal Navy in World War I|url=http://historyhubulster.co.uk/royal-navy-world-war-i/|work=History Hub Ulster|access-date=2015-06-23}}
  • 27 October – World War I: Royal Navy super-dreadnought battleship {{HMS|Audacious|1912|6}} (23,400 tons), was sunk off Tory Island, north-west of Ireland, by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin.
  • 5 December – The Irish Volunteers appointed a headquarters staff, with Eoin MacNeill as chief of staff.{{cite book|first=Michael|last=Tierney|title=Eoin MacNeill|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1980|isbn=0198224400|pages=171–172}}
  • Welsh evangelist George Jeffreys established his first church in Belfast, predecessor of the Elim Pentecostal Church.

Arts and literature

  • February
  • James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man commenced serialization in The Egoist (London).
  • Lord Dunsany's collection Five Plays was published in London.
  • 4 February – A staging of George A. Birmingham's comedy General John Regan at Westport Town Hall provoked a riot.{{cite news|title=General John Regan: The Westport Riots – Claim For £1,000 Compensation|newspaper=The Irish Times|date=1914-04-11}}
  • June – James Joyce's Dubliners, a collection of fifteen short stories depicting the Irish middle classes in and around Dublin during the early 20th century, was published in London.
  • Terence MacSwiney's contemporary play The Revolutionist was published (first performed 1921).{{cite book|title=History's Daughter: A Memoir from the Only Child of Terence MacSwiney|first=Máire MacSwiney|last=Brugha|publisher=The O'Brien Press|location=Dublin|year=2006|isbn=978-0-86278-986-2}}

Sports

= Association football =

== International ==

  • Ireland won the British Home Championship football tournament outright for the first time.
  • 19 January – Wales 1–2 Ireland (in Wrexham){{cite book|last=Hayes|first=Dean|year=2006|title=Northern Ireland International Football Facts|publisher=Appletree Press|location=Belfast|isbn=0-86281-874-5|page=162}}
  • 14 February – England 0–3 Ireland (in Middlesbrough)
  • 14 March – Ireland 1–1 Scotland (in Belfast)

=Golf=

Births

Deaths

References