January 1912
At the US Democratic Party Convention in Baltimore, Woodrow Wilson’s candidacy for the presidency was strongly opposed by Tamany Hall. Present was Judge Cohalan, as adviser to Charles F. Murphy, leader of Tamanay. Wilson was finally accepted, but only on the 40th ballot and marked the cards of the Irish-American leadership, including Judge Cohalan.
The telephone systems throughout the U.K. and Ireland were nationalised with the General Post Office taking over the management of telecomunications from the National Telephone Company.
Limerick born, Michael O’Shaughnessy (1864-1934) became City Engineer of San Francisco (1912-34), rebuilding much of the city’s infrastructure following the 1906 earthquake.
Former Prison Service Engineer and Lord Lieutenant Private Secretary, Max Green was appointed to the General Prisons Board by the Liberals as a concession to the Irish Parliamentary Party. He was to remain in office for 10 years, until killed while trying to stop an armed robbery in Stephen’s Green April 1922.
2:
The Irish Times commented on a newly published book that openly promoted an independent Irish State.’The Framework of Home Rule’ was written by Erskine Childers, writer of the bestselling ‘Riddle of the Sands’ in 1904.
British War Staff established
French Army General Staff makes the offensive à outrance official French military doctrine in it's Regulations for the Conduct of Large Units
5:
Colonel Wallace, Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland applies to Belfast Magistrates for permission to legally begin drilling men in defence of the realm, in fact to oppose Home Rule.
French Senate initiates an investigative committee into Cailloux's role in the Agadir Crisis and suspicions about Calloux's "Germanophilia" became widespread; these sentiments led to the fall of the "Cailloux" government during 1912; Cailloux still maintained enough political power that he was back in his "old" post of Minister of Finance
6: US – New Mexico becomes the 47th state of the Union.
8: Jeannie Wyse Power, the Vice President of Sinn Fein said on agitation for female sufferage: ‘As an Irish nationalist I cannot see why there should be any antagonism between the Irish womens demand for citizenship and the demand for a native Parliament. Our clim is that we shall not be debarred merely by sex from the rights of citizens’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
15: Augustine Birrel, the Chief Secretary in an aside with John Dillon of the Irish Party on a move to allow the vote for women ‘I don’t see how I could remain in a Cabinet which has adopted en bloc female sufferage, married and single…I believe the wire pullers are satisified no such amendment can pass.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
17: Captain Robert Scott and his party finally reached the South Pole – only to discover that his Norwegian rival had beaten him by a month.
19:
Winston Churchill, then a Liberal MP, announced that he would attend a Pro-Home Rule rally in Belfast on February 8th, in support of John Redmond and the Irish Nationalist Parlimanentary Party. Property owners in the city lobbied Belfast Corporation to cancel the Churchill/Redmond booking of the Ulster Hall as there was every likelihood of damage in event of a probable riot. Before the Corporation could comment, the Belfast Unionists rented the hall for the night prior to the rally meeting, making it clear that they would occupy the building and so prvent the rally from going ahead. Churchill then attempted to rent the Exhibition Hall in the Botanical Gardens, with the Unionists also doing the same. The Exhibition Hall management refused both applications and Churchill had to settle for the Celtic Park football pitch.
22: Frederick Smith, an anti-Home Rule Tory MP said in Liverpool ‘There was no length to which Ulster would not be entitled to go, however desperate or unconditional, in carrying the quarrel, if the quarrel was wickidly fixed upon them’
Sharing the podium was Carson, who spoke of the action taken to prevent Churchill from using Ulster Hall to speak in favour of Home Rule: ‘If they [ Ulster Unionists ] did anything else, they would have been false to the position in which they were placed. If that is inciting to riot, here I am’
26: Over 30,000 people attended protest rallies in Ulster against British Government proposals to grant Home Rule. Preceeded by Lambeg Drums, people came in farm carts, traps and charabancs to Omagh to hear MP Sir Edward Carson announce’ If we cannot remain as we are, we will take matters into our own hands’.
Sir Roger Casement wrote another phamphlet entitled ‘Ireland and the British Army’ arguing that the British Army does not protect Ireland and Irishmen would be better employed looking after Ireland’s interests at home and in Parliament than shoring up British occupation of other nations.
28: Birth of US Artist Jackson Pollock ( d. 11.8.56 )
A Presbyterian minister, Rev J.B.Armour argued the case for Home Rule from a Presbyterian viewpoint ‘..the secret disciples of Home Rule are not only large but an increasing number…the belief that democracy in Ireland would become a persecutor of Protestants..can only arise in the minds of those who hate democracy and all it’s works..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
February 1912
4: Big freeze throughout Ireland and Britain as artic winds drop temperatures to –35f.
Joffre tells (French) Supreme War Council that he was counting on British for 6 infantry and 1 cavalry divisions to be ready for action in Mauberge area by 15th day of mobilization
7: Kaiser announces Army and Navy Bills
8:
Prior to the Churchill/Redmond Home Rule Rally in Belfast, 5,000 troops and cavalry were sent to the city from the South to keep order. Churchill received a hostile reception in Belfast, and at a rally in Celtic Park to a mostly Catholic crowd, he said ‘ What harm could Irish ideas and sentiment, and Irish dreams, if given free play in an Irish Parliament, do to the strong structure of British power? Was it not worthwhile for the British statesmen to try and make their life long partner happy and contented and free? Let [ Protestant Ulster ] fight for the spread of charity, tolerance and enlightment among men. Then indeed gentlemen, Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.’
The meeting turned out to be a ‘damp squib’ and as soon as it was over, he caught the first train back to Britain.
In exile in Switzerland, Lenin began publishing a daily newspaper, Pravda.
In London, the Committee of Imperial Defense finalised secret plans that in event of war with Germany, the Royal Navy amongst other measures, would cut the Imperial German telegraph cables connecting the country with France, Spain, Africa and the Americas.
The Connecticut Irish Association presented Captain Anthony of the Catalpa Rescue with $1,000.
12: China – Child Emperor abdicated and the Manchu rule came to an end after 300 years.
14: US – Arizona became the 48th State of the Union.
28: The worlds first parachute jump from an airplane takes place over Missouri by Albert Berry. It opened.
30: Paris: Copying Albert Berry, Franz Richelt jumped from the Eiffel Tower with a parachute. It didn’t open.
The Woolworth building in New York opened in Lower Manhattan. The most spectacular skyscraper at the time, towering 792 feet.
John Redmond in conversation with sufragettes said ‘Women’s sufferage will, I believe, be the ruin of our western civilisation. It will destroy the home, challenge the headship of man laid down by God. It may come in your time, I hope not in mine.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
March 1912
1: London – militant suffragettes went on a window smashing rampage through the West-End. More than 120 women arrested including the leader, Emmeline Pankhurst. Number 10 Downing Street was also hit. In a concerted effort, the attacks took place simultaeounously with the women making no attempts to escape.
4: Suffragette raid on the House of Commons results in 96 women arrested.
Serbia: The Young Turks revolution (1908-1909) and the Turko-Italian War (1911-1912) provided the Balkan states with an opportunity to retaliate against the Turks, their former oppressors. In March 1912, Serbia arranged a treaty of alliance with Bulgaria. Greece concluded a military convention with Bulgaria the following May.
12: A Royal Commission justified vivescection as ‘morally justifiable’.
18: London – Churchill states Government intention to maintain Royal Navy superioroty in Europe. Churchill announces enlarging the RN, and removal of fleet from Malta to home waters (and with the French realigning their fleet)
22: New German naval program begun marking failure of Anglo-German talks on naval forces
27: Future British Labour Prime Minister – James Callaghan (1976-79 ).
28: London – The Womens Enfranchisment Bill was defeated by 14 votes in it's second reading in the House of Commons. The Irish Party managed to raise the ire of suffragettes as it voted with the Government. While a majority of the Irish nationalist MPs were sympathetic to women’s suffrage, Redmond was impacably opposed and believed that if the Bill was passed, it could destabilise the Government and as a result, the passage of the 3rd Home Rule Bill. Christabel Pankhurst, the leading British suffragette, promptly sent a poster parade to Parliament Square with the message ‘No votes for women – no home rule’.
‘Mr Redmond sullied the Irish flag by opposing one movement of liberation in the supposed interests of another. His metholds are not a model to imitate’ Journalist H.N.Brailsford.
Liz Curtis ‘The Cause of Ireland – from the United Irishmen to Partition’. Beyond the Pale, Belfast 1994. p221
31:In an enormous demonstration in Dublin, Patrick Pearse shared a dias with John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party on the Third Home Rule Bill: ‘The Bill which we support today will be for the good of Ireland…but if we are tricked this time…let the Gall understand that if we are cheated once more there will be red war in Ireland.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
Irish suffragettes stepped up their campaign for womens voting rights in the new Home Rule Bill. Members of the Irish Women’s Franchise League parade with sandwich boards which were forcibly removed by members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
April 1912
The Wolfe Tone Monument Association was renamed the ‘Wolfe Tone and United Irishmen Memorial Committee’ with Tom Clarke as President and Sean MacDermott as Vice-President. Both went to Limerick to visit the ageing Fenian, former fellow prisoner and father-in-law, John Daly. Clarke sent a photograph of the three to William Crossin in the US with the comments: ‘You wil be please to know that things are better here than they have been in many years. Have no fear, these young fellows – the ablest in the country, are all rightm with clean hearts and having their heads screwed on the right way. Never have I felt more hopeful and as time goes along that hope is strengtened.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Press, Co. Kerry. P36
9: Bonar Law attended a large demonstration of some 240,000 people at which Carson was principal speaker saying of Law ‘He will have no shrinking and no compromise…under no circumstances will we submit to Home Rule. Raise your hands! Repeat after me – ‘Never under any circumstances will we submit to Home Rule’
Charles Callan Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom-1866-1922’. Devin-Adair, New York 1957. P141
At the centre of the scene was a 90 foot flagpole flying the largest union jack ever woven.
Later that evening in London, the MD of the Marconi company, Godfrey Isaacs was havign dinner at the Savoy with the Asquith Government Attorney General, his brother Rufus. Godfrey tipped him off that Marconi’s US subsidiary was about to issue 1.4 million $1 shares and that if he bought at pre-market prices, he could make a killing. Rufus snapped up 10,000 shares and shared the news with the Chief Whip, Alexander Murray who bought 1,000 and a further 2,500, this time with Liberal Party funds. Lloyd George got wind of the deal and snapped up 1,000. Insider trading rumours were flying by summer but as it turned out, all three were burned badly – holding too long.
11: The Third Home Rule Bill was introduced by Asquith to a packed House of Commons and set in motion powerful forces that had been gathering in anticipation of the Bill. While the Home Rule Bill was certainly not a seperatist scheme, it did offer a mild federal proposal and a narrow measure of autonomy to Ireland. Under it’s provisions, the island would be administered by a separate parliament with jurisdiction over it’s own internal affairs. The Irish House of Commons meeting in Dublin would have 164 MPs and Senate, 40 members. Ulster would have representation of 59 MP’s. Control over military affairs, foreign relations, trade, revenue, coinage, postal service and the police would remain with Westminster. Ireland would remain linked to the crown and unable to act independently with policing also held by British authorities for a period of 6 years. 42 Irish members were to continue representing the country at Westminster. Overall, the Bill allowed for little autonomy and even less authority over local Irish, let alone Ulster affairs. As it was, Ulster was guaranteed an overrepresentation in the lower house of the Irish legislature, and the Senate was expected to include a substantial number of Protestants. Moreover, the Irish Government would not be permitted to fund or show partiality towards any faith.
‘ Little more, indeed, than glorified local government’FSL Lyons quoted in Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P7
Reaction to the bill was immediate. From the Nationalists, there was a sense of profound disapointment and anger at the level of autonomy offered. Griffith condemned the Bill outright as ‘hopelessly inadequate..if this be liberty, the lexicographers have deceived us.’ For the constitutional Nationalists, the realisiation of a generation that a form of indpendence had been achieved through constitutional means and was celebrated. Redmond’s Irish Party received congratulations from British Domionons around the world. The reaction from the Ulster Unionists & Conservatives was stronger and more vocal. This opposition believed that the bill was the first stage in a move to give Ireland complete independence with Carson saying that if the people of England permitted coercion of their ‘kith and kin’ in Ulster, the British Army would never stand the strain. For many, there was open discussion of resisting Home Rule to the extent of imperiling the British constitutional system. Economic disaster also loomed in the eyes of many Unionists as a result of the proposed Home Rule legislation. The Solemn League and Covenant concurred forecasting that ‘ Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well being of Ulster as well as to the whole of Ireland’
Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P7
While economic arguments achieved a wide consensus of opinion amongst Northern Unionists, the one unifying slogan that knitted the similar but diverse opinions was “Home Rule is Rome Rule”.
‘Home rule, the covenanters reassured themselves would be ‘ subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship and perilous to the unity of the Empire.’ The Reverened Samuel Prenter, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church captured the essence of these fears:
‘The contention of the Irish protestatnts is that neither their civil nor their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an Irish parliament, civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant of the Vatican…the Church is hostile to the liberty of the Press, the liberty pf public speech, to modernism in science, in litterarure, philosophy…there are simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome.’
Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P9
Opposition also came from within the Liberals, with the Liberal MP, Agar Roberts proposing during the second reading of the Third Home Rule Bill in May , that counties Derry, Down, Antrim and Armagh should be excluded from Home Rule. Carson in turn protested at the exclusion of Tyrone and Fermanagh.
‘Nothing had changed since the Belfast Newsletter declared in 1886 than an Irish parliament ‘would be the laughing stock of the civilised world’
Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P7
John Redmond dismissed the concept of Unionist claims to British control over Ireland and the ‘Two nations’ theory and insisted that the Unionists were part of the Irish Nation and therefore belonged to a Home Rule parliament. He conceeded that unionism could be represented with a version of ‘Home rule within Home rule’. While Redmond achieved some success in his dealings with the British Government, he failed in his dealings with Belfast. In his opinion, a majority consensus did not feature and little was done to allay Unionist fears of a Nationalist majority over a Loyalist minority.
Arthur Griffith on the Home Rule Bill : ‘If this is liberty, the lexiocographers have deceived us’
Cardinal Michael Logue, Primate of Ireland on the Bill ‘…a skeleton on which to hang restrictions’
Henry Ford visited Cork city and selected a racecourse at the Marina as a proposed factory site. The story is told that while the representatives of the major banks waited patiently by the quays for the docking of Ford’s ship and the promise of a lucrative and major account, the Hibernian Bank stole the iniative on the competitors. Their representative joined the ship en-route, met with Ford and secured the banking partnership.
Sean MacDiarmada contracted polio which left him partially disabled but he continued his work with the I.R.B.
10: White Star liner, ‘Titanic’ had a close miss with the liner, SS New York as she left on her maiden voyage from Southampton.
In his Lenten Pastoral for 1912, the Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Dr Edward O’Dwyer commented that ‘hitherto the question of votes for women ‘has been merely academic, and provoked a smile of amusement, rather than serious consideration. Now it has come within the range of practical politics’. He felt sure, however, that most of his women listeners would regard the idea that they would have the vote as ‘an absurdity’ and be glad that Catholic reverence for women had ‘restricted the activities of woman’s life to the peace and quiet of her home. She was made by God too frail, too delicate, too good, to mix in the rough ways of men in the world’
The Irish Times Book of The Century. Fintan O’Toole. Gill & Macmillan 1999. p53
11: Titanic lay at anchor just off Queenstown
12: Irish American leaders sent a cable of congratulations to Redmond on ‘the marvelous success of the movement and expressed their confidence in the Bill’ Signed by 15 prominent Irish Americans including Jam O’Gorman, Martin Keogh, John Crimmins, John Quinn, William Gaynor, Morgan O’Brien, W.Bourke Cockran and William McAdoo’
‘American Opinion & The Irish Question 1910-23’ Francis M Carroll – Gill & McMillian & St. Martin’s Press 1978. p20
Irish Home Rule Bill debated in House of Commons
from The Irish Times 12 April 1912
Even Home Rule Bills lose their 'drawing' power by repetition. Though all the seats on the floor of the House of Commons were occupied today, there was no necessity to bring in chairs for the accommodation of members, as was done in 1886 and 1893, and there was plenty of room in the side galleries. It was noticed that Mr Bottomley put in an appearance for, I believe, the first time this session.
In the Peers' Gallery were Lords Dunraven, MacDonnell, Monteagle, and Oranmore and Browne, while the distinguished strangers included Sir Edward Clarke, who led the Unionist attack nineteen years ago; Sir George Reid, Mr Commissioner Bailey, the Russian and American Ambassadors, and two or three Irish Roman Catholic dignitaries.
Just before three o'clock a great burst of cheering from the Ministerialists heralded the entry of the Prime Minister from behind the Speaker's chair. A minute later Mr Redmond came in from the Lobby entrance, and received a similar greeting from his supporters. Shortly afterwards it was the turn of the Unionists to give a rousing welcome to Sir Edward Carson.
The few questions on the paper were run through with great rapidity, and it was only five minutes past three when Mr Asquith rose. He began with a reference to Mr Gladstone's mammoth speeches of 1886 and 1893, and declared that they contained 'the classic exposition' of the case between Great Britain and Ireland.
He would not attempt to 'bend the bow of Ulysses,' but would take up the narrative where Mr Gladstone left it. Mr Asquith is usually very concise, but in this instance he occupied more than half an hour with preliminary arguments. First he dwelt upon the persistence of the Irish demand, as witnessed at eight successive General Elections.
The Government did not underrate the importance of North-East Ulster's opposition, but could not admit the right of a minority to veto the verdict of the vast body of their countrymen. But in other respects Ireland had changed. There had been a great improvement in social order, so that Home Rule was no longer a counsel of despair. Irish relations with Great Britain had been largely affected by
Imperial legislation, the working of which had blunted some of the arrows in the Unionist quiver. In particular, land purchase and old age pensions had made the idea of separation more unthinkable than ever. Turning to the Imperial aspect of the question, Mr Asquith dwelt on the imperative need for emancipating Parliament from local burdens. Our present system was one of 'centralised impotence.'
Home Rule all round could not be accomplished at one blow, but the present bill was introduced with the full and direct purpose of further applications of the principle. Here the Opposition broke in with sarcastic cries of 'Preamble.'
After some remarks upon Colonial analogies, Mr Asquith at last entered upon the exposition of the bill, the details of which you will have set forth in your news columns. Towards the end of his closely packed oration he broke into an attack upon Mr Bonar Law's speech at Belfast, sneered at 'the new style,' which was 'all very well for Ulster,' and seemed deliberately to provoke the storm of interruptions and gibes which at once arose from the Unionist benches. It was an unworthy conclusion to a speech which otherwise had been interesting and innocuous.
Sir Edward Carson, who led off for the Opposition, is not the man to refuse a challenge, and he quickly showed that he was in fine fighting form. A more ridiculous and fantastic proposal had never been put before any Parliament. It was absolutely unworkable. A safeguard for the minority was a nominated Senate - a wise proposal, that, from a Radical Government.
The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament meant nothing, and was only inserted to satisfy some uneasy consciences. The Government policy had twice been rejected by the voters when it was submitted to them in concrete form. Would they allow this bill to be put before the electorate? 'Answer,' cried the Opposition. But Mr Asquith sat in mumchance. Then Sir Edward pointed out that, so long as the Government had an independent majority, we heard nothing of Home Rule.
It was only now, when the Constitution was in suspense, and they were dependent on Nationalist support, that they felt constrained to introduce it. He claimed that the Unionist policy had been thoroughly justified by the events of the last twenty years in Ireland, and quoted from the speeches by Lord MacDonnell and Mr T. W. Russell in support of his assertion.
Mr Redmond rose next, and began by declaring that this was a 'great and historical occasion,' deserving calm and serious discussion, and he regretted that it was apparently the interest of some persons to engender passion. This sounded like a hit at Mr Asquith, but, presumably was intended for Sir Edward Carson.
The rest of his speech consisted largely of an endorsement of the Prime Minister's assertions. No word of criticism broke the even tenor of his praise. Even as regards finance, he considered this a better bill than either of its predecessors. It was 'a great measure' and an 'adequate' measure, and he would recommend the coming Convention to accept it.
The Labour Leader (Mr Ramsay Macdonald) added nothing new to the situation. He extended a warm welcome to the bill. Lord Castlereagh, who said he was proud to be a descendant of one who was responsible for the Act of Union, naturally had no good word for the bill. Mr William O'Brien, who followed was, of course, listened to with much attention.
He made more of the fact that he had not been privileged to see a draft of the measure, a lack which rendered it impossible for him to give a considered or final judgment upon its terms, but in a general way he remarked that it was a complex bill and one of transcendent importance to Ireland. While he wished the government had been more courageous, and given to the Irish Legislature complete power over the purse, he congratulated the Cabinet upon its determination to complete land purchase under Imperial auspices, this being a more vital necessity.
For very nearly an hour, Captain Craig held forth against the bill, and other speakers followed on both sides, including Mr Eugene Wason, Sir Thomas Esmonde, and Mr Harry Lawson. Mr Ronald MacNeill, as an Ulsterman proud of his race, congratulated the House on having got away from vague and bombastic rhetoric to definite proposals.
He utterly denied Mr Redmond's statement that Parnell had accepted the bill of 1886 as a final settlement, and quoted Parnell's contrary statement of St Patrick's Day, 1891. He suggested that the Nationalist leader's acceptance of today's bill was liable to similar modifications. Mr MacNeill's speech made a considerable impression. The debate was adjourned on the motion of Mr Balfour.
Clan na Gael and the Independent Nationalists saw the Bill as little more than ‘Sham autonomy’ and urged Redmond to reject it.
13: Bourke Cockran wrote to Redmond extending his wishes but commenting that ‘the bill does not seem to be particularly satisfying to either Nationalist or Unionist’
‘American Opinion & The Irish Question 1910-23’ Francis M Carroll – Gill & McMillian & St. Martin’s Press 1978. p20
15:
Irish public shows lack of interest in Home Rule Bill
from The Irish Times 15 April 1912
A remarkable lack of general interest in the Home Rule Bill is manifesting itself amongst all classes. So far as Dublin is concerned, the bill, which was heralded with so many words, has fallen like a stick from a spent rocket.
Honest Nationalists, if not hostile in their criticism, are lukewarm in their general approval, while Unionist business men openly condemn it as political trickery, in which they can see no good. The bill is looked upon with serious apprehension by the Civil servants, who are proposed to be transferred to the Irish Executive.
Legal servants, when asked for their views, preferred to wait for the text of the bill before expressing any opinion. The Post Office officials were equally reticent.
A retired official stated that undoubtedly the postal service at present laboured under many grievances, but he was inclined to think that a transfer to a Nationalist Executive would only mean to the postal service that it has, to use a homely phrase, got 'out of the frying pan and into the fire.' This phrase, so far as our inquiries have gone, practically sums up public opinion in Dublin on the measure.
Way to progress
from The Irish Times 15 April 1912
If only some of the women connected with the suffrage movement of a few years ago would only come forward and tackle the problems that they thought so strongly about in those days, some progress of a real and lasting sort would be possible.
Perhaps it is that fighting women, as well as fighting men, are bad politicians. Few soldiers have shown in the British Parliament any outstanding capacity for dealing with constitutional procedure, and it may be - although I hope events will falsify this conclusion - that the women who won the vote are incapable of carrying through the reforms that they promised us in their fighting speeches.
If they are to function they must have a rallying point; they must have leaders and a programme. And then they can build up an organisation without which no political movement can hope to succeed. If they remain in their retirement the cause for which they risked life and limb and liberty is lost.
Women who were to introduce a new and finer note into politics will have fought in vain if they allow the vital questions of the day to be discussed with less fire and conviction than they would impart into a teatime talk about the latest thing in hats!
Surely those who gained notoriety in those days are not afraid of the hard work and the application of politics to the problems they then propounded and the grievances they then spoke about so eloquently.
The task they are called upon to shoulder is not so spectacular as the militant suffrage movement, but it is far more serviceable. A.C.B.
Cambon proposes to Nicholson a renewal of Landsdowne's "May 1905 offer" of an alliance; Grey writes Cambon with promises but no formal arrangement
2.20am - 1,490 of the 2,340 passengers and crew of the Titanic drowned in the icy waters of the North Atlantic following the ships collision with an iceberg and it’s sinking some 2 ½ hours later. The ‘unsinkable’ ship slid beneath the waves with all lights blazing. Three millionaires got away on the first boat, yet others remained behind.
16:
John Redmond spoke in the House of Commons on the first reading of the Third Home Rule Bill: ‘Ireland today is peaceful beyond record. She has almost entirley, I believe, cast aside her suspicions and her rancour toward this country; and England, on her side, is, I believe, today more willing than ever she was in her past history to admit Ireland on terms of equality, liberty and loyalty into that great sisterhood of nations that makes up the British Empire.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
The Bill was passed by 360 to 266 and progressed to the second reading.
Titanic
from The Irish Times 16 April 1912
Almost as we go to press the awful news reaches us of the loss of the Titanic, with nearly seventeen hundred out of the two thousand three hundred and fifty-eight passengers and crew who formed her immense burden of human life. The telegrams are brief.
They upset all the reports which reached us between midday and midnight, but it is to be feared that they are true. We cannot be surprised that the public received with something like complete incredulity the first reports yesterday morning that the giant liner was sinking off the Newfoundland banks, as the result of a collision with an iceberg. To sudden tidings of another tragedy of the sea we are only too well accustomed.
But the imagination halts at the suggestion that the latest and most marvellous mechanisms of ocean traffic are exposed to dangers every whit as awful as those which lie before any tramp steamer of a few tons burden. 'Floating palaces' is a common phrase of description for such vessels as the Titanic, or her sister-ship, the Olympic, and even vessels of much smaller size.
The Titanic was appointed throughout in a way which no hotel on solid earth could hope to rival. She had suites of luxurious apartments, carried a large staff of first-class cooks, and was fitted with spacious lounges containing all kinds of costly furniture and decorations. The sight of a swimming bath helped to convey to the mind of the traveller who wandered through her corridors the suggestion that he was in a magnificent hotel.
There was nothing to remind him that he was on board ship except the far-off throbbing of the screw. We do not suppose that those who parted from the Titanic's passengers at Southampton or Queenstown felt any more emotion than if their friends were stepping into the security of a train.
We can imagine that this happy and comfortable hotel-party of hundreds of passengers were inclined to regret that their voyage across the Atlantic was nearly ended. Then, with all the horror of the totally unexpected, just before midnight, they suffered a sea-change.
A sudden shock of collision, and the largest vessel in the world lay helpless, fighting a losing battle against time, while her wireless apparatus sent out urgent messages that she was sinking and called for help.
The substantial reports which reached an anxious public throughout yesterday of the saving of the passengers and crew by means of the boats of other liners, hastily summoned by wireless telegraphy, appear to have had no foundation; their origin has yet to be explained. If it be, indeed, true that only 675 women and children have been saved out of the ship's immense passenger list, this is one of the supreme tragedies of the sea.
The loss of the Titanic finally disproves the confident assertion that her system of watertight compartments made her absolutely unsinkable. It is hardly profitable to speculate at present upon the causes of the collision. But this accident, following upon the collision between the Olympic and HMS Hawke, seems to lend colour to the theory then put forward that the suction of such enormous vessels exposes them to a danger hitherto unknown.
These two accidents to the largest vessels in the world must give pause to naval architects who scout the suggestion that the very size of modern vessels may be a source of weakness to them. It is, at least, certain that misfortune has dogged the steps by which the tonnage of liners has increased to that of the two largest examples that the world has yet known.
The Olympic had to be returned shortly after completion to the hands of her builders. Her sister-ship, whose building cost more than that of a Dreadnought, has ended her maiden voyage at the bottom of the Atlantic.
17: Total eclipse of the sun visible in Dublin.
Redmond organised a national convention to discuss the Home Rule Bill. Suffragettes attempted to attend the meeting but were barred by police. That night, ‘Votes for Women’ was painted on the office building of the United Irish League.
18: New York – SS Carpathia arrives with Titanic survivors.
20: Bram Stoker, novelist (author of Dracula 1897 ) dies aged 65.
24: New York – two ‘Titanic’ officers say hundreds were lost because of inadequate numbers of lifebaots aboard the liner.
Justin McCarthy, Home Rule politician, leader of the anti-Parnelites, historian and novelist dies aged 82.
May 1912
1: Canada announced that the ‘Titanic’ dead are to be buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
2: An inquiry into the sinking of the ‘Titanic’ opens in London.
4: Bonar Law in conversation with the King, advised that if the Home Rule Bill were to be passed, probably in 1914, he would have a choice to either accept it or ‘dismiss your ministers and choose others who will support you in vetoing it – and in either case half your subjects will think you have acted against them’…at this the King reportedly ‘turned red’ and Bonar Law said afterwards ‘I think I have given the King the worst five minutes that he hads had for a long time’
Liz Curtis ‘The Cause of Ireland – from the United Irishmen to Partition’. Beyond the Pale, Belfast 1994. p238
The King was receive far more complaints and advice from his ministers.
5: Russia – first issue of the Bolshevik newspaper ‘Pravda’ hits Moscow streets.
US – The first slide fastener or ‘zipper’ was invented by Gideon Sundback.
7: The Capuchins report to Rome that their temperance crusade has resulted in more than a million pledges since 1905.
9: London – Home Rule Bill gets through the Commons – winning a majority of 94 at it's second reading in the House of Commons. Herbert Asquith announced that ‘The British people, just and generous by nature, are not going to be frightened out of doing a just thing by the language of intimidation.’
The Bill now went to the committee stage, when amendments could be put forward.
10: Carson speaking after the second reading of the third Home Rule Bill:’Assuming…that the people of this country { Britain ] would allow the coercion of their kith and kin [ Unionists ] – what would be the effect upon the army? Many officers would resign; no army could stand such a strain upon them’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
14: Denmark: Fredrick V111 died and succeded by his son, reigning as Christian X. ( The older brother of Haakon V11 of Norway. )
21: Military bills and Lex Bassermann-Erzberger passed by Reichstag
28: Washington – US enquiry into the Titanic disaster returens a verdict of negligence.
29: Greece joins Balkan League
30: US Aviation pioneer, Wilbur Wright dies aged 45.
June 1912
1: Dublin – a mass sufferage meeting held in the city. Speakers included Constance Markievicz, Delia Larkin ( founder of the Irish Womn Worker’s Union and sister of James ) and Jennie Wyse-Power, vice-president Sinn Fein. The meeting passed a resolution calling for the Home Rule Bill to be amended to include votes for women. Copies that were sent to each cabinet minister and all Irish MPs were ignored.
11:
The concept of Partition within the island of Ireland was first proposed on this date when the Liberal Unionist MP for a Cornwall constituecy, T.C.Agar-Robartes introduced an amendment of the third Home Rule Bill for the exclusion of Antrim, Armagh, Down and Derry – in effect a partition of Ireland. It was opened by the Liberal Government and supported by the Conservative Leader, Bonar Law who stated that there were stronger influences than parliamentary majorities, and that a Government which ordered troops to enforce Home Rule would stand more chance of being lynched in London than Loyalists would stand of being shot in Belfast. As Roberts said ‘I have never heard that orange bitters will mix with Irish whiskey’
At this time, the Conservatives had been out of power since 1905 and ‘they sniffed a winning issue with the ‘empire in danger’ with Home Rule being ‘as much the occasion as the cause’ of their new style of violent opposition to the Liberal government.’ Home Rule support gave the Liberal minority government a majority in theHouse.
Asquith said ‘You can no more split Ireland into parts than you can split England or Scotland into parts’
13: Austria: Frau Vik Kunetiska elected Austria’s first woman MP but Prince Thun of Bohemia refused to sanction her election.
Eight membersof the Irish Womens Franchise League, including Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington were arrested for breaking windows of Government buildings in Dublin. Appearing before magistrates, they were fined and when refused to pay, were jailed.
18:
The Agar-Robarts amendment was defeated by 320 votes to 251.
Carson spoke after the defeat of the Home Rule Bill amendment to exclude 4 counties of Ulster: ‘The Government last night declared war against Ulster and have announced that the only soloution to this question is to drive them out of a community in which they are satisfied, into a community which they loathe, hate and detest. We will accept the declaration of war. We are not altogther unprepared’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
18: Andrew Bonar Law in the House of Commons: ‘If Ulster does resist by force…no Government would dare use their troops to drive them out…the Government which gave the order to employ troops for that purpose would run a greater risk of being lynched in London that the loyalists of Ulster would run of being shot in Belfast’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
O’Rahilly in a series of articles appearing the monthly Irish Freedom, argued that it was essential for Irishmen to be armed if they wanted their freedom. While never a member of the IRB, O’Rahilly held a ‘firm conviction that the British would never release their grip on Ireland until the Irish were in a position to compel them to do so by armed force.’
Aodogan O’Rahilly “Winding The Clock – O’Rahilly and the 1916 Rising” Lilliput Press, 1991.p83
28: Suffragettes start window smashing campaign at Post Offices and labour exchanges. The Irish Labour Party founded in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
29: Stockholm Olympic Games opens.
Derry – members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians attacked a Presbyterian Sunday School outing.
30: Belfast – following press reports of the Sunday School attack in Derry, unionist shipyard workers went on a rampage, expelling some 400 Catholic workers, injuring several seriously. Violence escalated throughout the shipyards in the following days aimed at Catholics and Protestant socialists.
July 1912
2: Catholic workers are expelled from the shipyards in Belfast.
10: Chief Secretary Birrell confirmed that 2,009 men had been ejected from their work at the Belfast shipyards, including some 300 Protestant socialists. The sectarian persecution continued for months.
18-20: British PM Asquith visits Ireland.
27: However, Partition came to be regarded as the only, workable solution to the Home Rule question.
Bonar Law intensified the threats of unconsituoonal resistance at a Conservative rally at Blenheim Palace, July 1912:
“ I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster will go, in which I shall not be ready to support them, and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people”.
Quoted by Mark Tierney. ”Modern Ireland”. Gill & McMillan, Dublin 1972. p55.
Frederick Smith at the rally said ‘Should it happen that Ulster is threatened with a violent attempt to incorporate her into an Irish Parliament with no appeal to the English electors, I say to Sir Edward Carson, appeal to the young men of England’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
Bonar Law also intended to approach the King and request he use Royal Veto in order to defeat Home Rule...”..else, half your subjects will think you have acted against them”.
Plans were now made for a mass protest in Ulster through signing a Solemn League and Covenant, along the lines of a 16th century Scottish Covenant. This was to take place in September 1912.
Little was done within Nationalist circles to placate some very obvious Ulster Unionist fears. John Redmond dismissed both Unionist claims to self-determination and to imperial rule in Ireland. He and many others were unable to understand that Ulster simply did not want Home Rule. Churchill publically criticised both Law and Carson for inciting the Unionists to civil war.
2: US: Woodrow Wilson nominated for the Democratic Party after five days of negotiating and 46 ballots.
3: A foot and mouth outbreak in Britian and Ireland.
20: Dublin: John Redmond injured slightly when English sufragettes Gladys Evans and Mary Leigh flung a small hatchet into the Prime Minister’s carriageas they drove through Dublin. ‘The women were hunted like rats in the city’ wrote Katherine Tynan, but they escaped to start an arson campaign at the Theatre Royal that evening where Asquith was due to speak at a Home Rule meeting. Prompt action by the male patrons managed to put the fires out and both Evans & Leigh were arrested.
21: Dublin – Asquith’s meeting went ahead in the Theatre Royal but was infiltrated by Hannah Sheey-Skeffington disguised as a clergyman, but swiftly ejected when she began heckling for votes. The IWFL organised an open air rally to coincide with Asquith’s meeting but were surrounded by an angry crowd. Several suffragettes were injured including Markievicz. English suffragettes Evan and Leigh were sentenced to 5 years penal servitude.
22: British navy recalls warships from the Mediteranean to the North Sea to counter a growing German fleet.
The New York Times weighed in on the Home Rule issue arguing that if this was good enough for the South of Ireland, then why should it not be applied to the North as well? ‘It is not easy to see why Ulster should be denied the degree of independence claimed for the people of Ireland, simply because they wish to use that independence to remain in the British Union, with their reights and powers as British subjects unimparired.’
A breakfast menu from RMS Mauretania dated Friday, July 26th 1912 includes:
Cantoloupe, Organges, Apples & Grape Fruit
Compote of peaches, baked apples and Prunes.
Oatmeal porridge, rolled oats, grape nuts, shredded wheat
Horlick’s malted milk, Boiled Cerealine
Grilled butterfish, Kippered Herrings, Fried Perch & Pickled Ling Fish
Eggs: boiled, fried, turned, poached, scrambeled, omlette.
Sailsbury steak, American dry hash, Calf’s brains, Cumberland Ham & Wiltshire bacon.
Potatoes: chipped, mashed and jacket.
Sirloin steaks, mutton chops, lambs kidneys, tomato sausages
Choice of cold meats, watercress and Radishes
Rice cakes with maple syrup or honey
White & Graham rolls, Vienna Bread, Coattage Loaves, Soda Scones, Corn Bread, Buckwheat Cakes & conserves.
All served with Ceylonese or Chinese teas, Coffee or Cocoa.
Lynch Family Archives. Folder 1 – 1890-1914
30: Japan – Emperor Maiji died and succeded by his son who reigned as Taisho until 1926.
31: Asquith responded to Bonar Law’s speech at Blenheim on the 27th: ‘What answer are you going to make to the vast majority of the Irish people when they [Ulster Unionists] resist the considered determination of Parliament and appeal to the language of the right honourable genetlman to justify their action?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
Asquith visited Ireland during the month. At one of his meetings, the celebrated Dublin character and full time radical, Francis Sheehy Skeffington was determined to protest for sufferage. Forewarned the ushers kept a close look out for the red bearded little man in his distinctive plus-fours – but failed to stop a red bearded priest from entering. In the middle of the PM’s speech, he began shouting out ‘Votes for wee-men…votes for wee-men’. Francis had scored again.
August 1912
14: Women’s sufferage began to use a new weapon – English and Irish sufergetters jailed for public order offences and refused political prisoner status, began hunger strikes. Hannah Sheehy Skeffington recalled ‘Hunger Strike was then a new weapon – we were the first to try it out in Ireland – had we but known we were pioneers in a long line…’
Balkans: Tension increased steadily in the Balkan Peninsula during the summer of 1912, especially after August 14, when Bulgaria dispatched a note to the Turks demanding that Macedonia, then a Turkish province, be granted autonomy.
15: Birrell in a letter to John Dillon of the Irish Party expressed his opinion on suffragettes: ‘Personally I am dead against forcible feeding which always ends with the release of the prisoner long befor eher time. I want to keep these ladies unde rlock and key for five years and I am willing to feed them Priest’s Champagne and Michaelmas Geese* all the time, if it can be done…these wretched hags…are obstinate to the point of death..’
* Bread and water.
17: The Ulster Unionist Council announced that September 28th would be designated in Ulster as Ulster Day, when loyal Orangemen would pledge themselves to a sacred Covenant. The Council intended this as a safety valve for popular emotion, while simultaenously demonstrating the solidarity of Ulster Protestantism.
20: Founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth dies aged 83. The army name and uniforms were adopted in 1877.
25: Former East German Leader – Erich Honecker born.
Asquith’s visit to Dublin offered a perfect opportunity for many suffragists to protest. Not confining themselves soely to the picket line and peaceful demonstarations, one deftly threw a hatchet at the PM as he rode in an open landau through the streets of Dublin to a meeting in the Theatre Royal while two English suffragettes set fire to the Theatre. While it earned the admiration of their Irish comrades, it also got them 5 years penal servitude in Mountjoy. Windows were smashed and the home of John Dillon was attacked the same day.
September 1912
The first flying race in Ireland was on September 7 1912 from Dublin to Belfast and back.
12: Dr William McKean, the former Presbyterian Moderator preaching in Ulster Hall said ‘The Irish Question is at bottom a war against Protestantism; it is an attempt to establish a Roman Catholic ascendancy in Ireland..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
14: Rioting takes place between Celtic and Linfield soccer supporters in Celtic Park. Belfast.
21: Carson speaking in Coleraine against the Home Rule Bill; ‘In the event of this proposed Parliament being thrust upon us, we solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves not to recognise it’s authority…I do not car eyuppence whether it is treason or not..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
22: Typhoon in Japan kills hundreds.
Sir Roger Casement published and circulated privately an article on the looming European war and it’s causes ‘The Balance of Power’
23
The Clan na Gael Convention opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Amongst those attending was Sean MacDermott, recovering from polio and representing the new I.R.B Supreme Council. There he reported to the Eexcutive that the strenght of the organisation was 1,660 members in Ireland, 367 in Britian and the circulation of Irish Freedom was 6,000 copies monthly.
Of the 1,660 members, 836 were in Leinster, 300 in Ulster, 250 in Connaught and 260 in Munster. The Fianna Eireann strenght was put around 1,000. McGarrity’s notes also record the ‘blocks in the way’ as being ‘Hibernians, the Parliamentary Party, clergy, spy system, want of employment, [&] want of money.
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Press, Co. Kerry. P33
McGarrity moved that the budget to fund the Irish movement be increased to $2,000 a year. It was passed.
24: Lord Willoughby Dail Eireann Broke, a British opponent of Home Rule at a rally in Dromore, Co. Down said ‘Peaceable metholds would be tried first, but if the last resort was forced on them by the radical Government, the latter would find that they had not only Orangemen against them, but that every white man in the British Empire would be giving support, either moral or active, to one of the most loyal populations that ever fought under the Union Jack’.
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
25
Joseph McGarrity, Clan na Gael District Officer for Philadelphia, was elected to the Clan na Gael Executive and became a member of the Revoloutinary Directory. From this date on, he was to wield a great influence over Irish affairs.
26:
At a Clan na Gael Eexutive meeting, McGarrity pressed both John Devoy and fellow 1867 veteran, Colonel Rickard O’Sullivan-Burke to write their memoirs
28
On ‘Ulster Day’ observed as a public holiday throughout Ulster, the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ was signed throughout the province to protest against Home Rule and defy both public opinion in Ireland and parliamentary opinion in Britian. In Belfast City Hall, Carson was the first to sign and followed throughout the province by some 471,414 people. ( Female Unionists were not allowed sign the Covenant, but not to be outdone, signed their own equivalent. ) In Dublin, 2000 men who gave proof of their Ulster birth, signed along with similar signings throughout Britain. Ultimately, almost 500,000 signatures were collected.
Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant
Being convinced in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizienship and perilous to the unity of the Empire, We whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V., humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do herby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant throughout this time of our threatened calamity to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in using all our means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament in Ireland.
And in the event of such a parliament being forced upon us we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its authority.
In sure confidence that God will defend the right we hereto subscribe our names.
And, further, we individually declare that we have not alreadys igned this Covenant.
The above was signed by me at …………………………… ‘Ulster Day’, Saturday, 28th September, 1912.
GOD SAVE THE KING
Some signed under duress with employers intimating that failure to sign may have consequences.
A street rhyme of the time went:
Edward Carson, he had a cat, and it sat upon the fender.
Every time he pulled it’s tail, it shouted - “No Surrender”.
Orange Clubs were now being founded throughout Ulster rising to 315 clubs with a membership of 61,454 by May 1913. Their members received drill instructions from ex-soldiers and officers. The RIC kept these drilling classes under ‘careful observation and prepared returns’
The Ulster Unionist Council announced a cmapaign to enslist 100,000 men who had signed the Covenant and were aged between 17 and 65. Meanwhile the military committee marked off the nine counties of Ulster into divisions and districts, each of which were to raise a determined number of regiments or battalions. Apparently few saw the contradiction between the actions of preparation for armed rebellion against the King and the Covenant that declared them to be ‘loyal subjects’.
30: the New York Times comments that if Irish nationalists had the right to leave the British system, the Unionist majority in the North had the right to remain with Great Britain. However, the paper condemned the tactics of the Unionists by saying it was ‘good politics but poor patriotism to disrupt the country by arrousing religious and sectarian passions that have always been the plague of Ireland’
Hamilton Norway took over as head of the Post Office in Ireland. He wrote some years later that on arrival ‘almost the first piece of advice given to me was in no case to engage a parlour maid who was a Roman Catholic, since any talk which touched on politics at the dinner table would be reported to the priests. That this belief was not groundless was demontrated a little later when a heedless letter from a guest, containing some sharp strictures on Nationalist Roman Catholics, and left carelessly by me upon my desk in my my study, was stolen by a cook dismissed for insolence, who quoted some of its phrases in a last interview with my wife, and who did in all probability endeavour to stir up mischief by using some of those subteranean ways which are common enough in Ireland. No mischielf resulted, however, and we were always on good terms with the priests and nuns in our neighbourhood, as well, of course as with our own Church.’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p91
In his memoirs, Norway recalled the Ireland of the time and official views on the state of affairs in the country:
‘Everyone believed that the point was off the Irish pikes and the gunmen had forgotten how to shoot. This was partly true.but it was also true that dangerous men and organisations were stirring in their sleep, while those who should have watched them played golf and dined in peace.’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p92
Within a few days of his arrival, he made formal calls on the British Administration, including Sir James Dougherty, the Under Secretary in Dublin Castle. He expressed no anxiety about the state of the country ‘nor did he indicate any source of difficulty likely to present itself to me. He told me, however, that the term Sinn Fein denoted every shade of Nationalism, from innocent enthuasiasts for Gaelic litterature and Gaelic sports at one end to red-hot Fenians at the other; so that to call a man a Sinn Feiner established nothing about him until one knew to which section of Sinn Fein he belonged’
Norway sumarised Sinn Fein as being ‘innocent enough at the outset, [but] had been adopted by dangerous men as a screen’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p93
Balkans: The Balkan states began to mobilize.
October 1912
Hamilton Norway gives more of an insider’s view to the British administration in Ireland at the time:
‘Lord Aberdeen was Viceroy when I took up duty, a kindly and well meaning man, but dull, and by no means strong enough to deal with the difficult situation which was even then growing up. The Chief Secretary was Mr Birrell, a shrewd literary critic, but a negligent and undiscerning politician, who did not occupy his Lodge in the Phoenix Park, and visited Ireland rarely. The Under Secretary, whose duty it was to know the country accurately, and to probe its movements deeply, was Sir James Dougherty, a man of supine temprament and narrow, if capable ideas, to whom one would not look for quick and resolute action on the sudden appearance of public danger. The Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary was Sir Neville Chamberlain, a distinguished soldier and perhaps alive to the growth of trouble which he did not check. The head of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, an unarmed force, was Sir John Ross of Bladensburg, of whom I think of constant admiration as a fine and resolute man, completely loyal to his subordinates at a time of grave difficulty…all of these with exception of the last, were dominated by the strong conviction held by Mr Birrell, and adopted as a principle of action by the mInsitry, that Ireland must be goverened according to Irish ideas, by which doctrine they nderstoood that all strong action must be foregone, and everything avoided which might concievablt create friction…now the truth about the Irish is that they appreciate strenght, despise weakness and desire to be governed firmly and justly. But this was never known at Westminster….’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p91-2
5: Herbert Asquith speaking in Ladybank said ‘The reckless rodomontade at Blenheim [ against Home Rule on July 27th ] in the early summer as developed and amplified in this Ulster campaign, furnishes for the future a complete grammar of anarchy’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p29
8: Balkans: The smallest of the Balkan states, Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire
Dockers in Dublin Port went on strike on October 12 1912.
15: Switzerland: With war in the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire wanted no additional enemies in the area and so agreed to sign a peace agreement with Italy where she received Tripoli and the Dodecanese.
18: Balkans: The Balkan allies along with Greece entered the war on the side of Montenegro, precipitating the First Balkan War. The Balkan Alliance won a series of decisive victories over the Turks during the next two months, forcing them to relinquish Albania, Macedonia, and practically all their other holdings in south-east Europe.
November 1912
5: Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson was elected US President, the first Democrat since Grover Cleveland in 1892. Wilson won only 42% of the vote, 27% going to the former President and indpendendet, Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent, President Taft taking 23%.
The Irish Parliamentary Party remained unmoved by the recent suffragette hunger strikes and voted with the Government to defeat the Women’s Suffereage Bill and women’s sufferege amndments to the Home Rule Bill.
By the end of November 1912, it was claimed that in Ulster alone 218,206 men and 228,991 women had signed the covenant. “ But it was no great threat. It committed them, at most, to a state of mind. Anyone who wished to sign it could have done so, in hot blood or in cold, without a qualm”
12: Madrid: Liberal PM Jose Mendez was assasinated and within a few months, the conservatives were back in force.
Switzerland: Chemist Edwin Brandenberger produced the first transparent wrapping paper, cellophane.
On 28th November, the omnious mood increased with Bonar Law suggesting to an audience of Dublin Unionists that the Army would mutiny if they were asked to coerce Ulster.
Liberal MP T.G. Agar-Roberts proposed the controversial issue of partition, arguing that a partition of the four most Protestant counties in Ulster ( Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down ) and these be given special treatment. This was rejected by the Irish Party and in turn by the Liberals and the proposal was defeated. Asquith pushed ahead, maintaining that Ireland was one nation, not two.
Tensions finally reached breaking point on November 13th when while speaking in the House on Home Rule, Asquith was interupted by Sir William Bull, shouting ‘Traitor’ across the floor. When Asquith demanded a formal retraction, Bull refused and left the chamber. An uproar ensued and the Speaker adjourned the house for an hour. As MP’s re-assembled later, the din continued and the Speaker left the chair after 10 minutes. As Ministers left, Churchill waved his handkerchief tauntingly for which he received a leather bound book in the side of the head from an Ulster Unionist, McNeill. Churchill had to be physically restrained from jumping the seats to ‘discuss matters further’ with McNeill. The book was a manual on rules and advice on observing good behaviour in Parliament.
The Home Rule bill passed successfully through the Commons but was rejected by the Lords, therefore preventing its automatic passage into law before 1914.
Carson announced that a provisional government would be formed if Home Rule went ahead.
Sean T.O’Kelly, over 50 years later wrote: “ The IRB…watched developments in Ulster with great interest. Whatever the concern for the power of the Unionists to disrupt the implementation of Home Rule, there were those among us who could not fail to take heart from the spectacle of Irishmen openly preaching insurection against the crown and arming themselves for acts of rebellion. “They are doing our work” it was whispered in the inner-councils of the IRB; if the Orangemen are arming illegally with the connivance of the pro-Union authorities and the Conservtive party, well then they are setting a priceless precedent for others, with other ends in view, to arm as well..”
“The Irish Uprising 1916-1922.” CBS 1966.
Clonmel: James Connelly and James Larkin founded the Irish Labour Party.
Dublin: Sean Mac Diarmada contracts polio leaving him disabled with a bad limp.
December 1912
3: Balkans: An armistice agreement was signed with the rapidly shrinking Ottoman Empire by all the Balkan allies except Greece, which continued military operations against the Turks. Serbia had extended it’s territory to the Adriatic shores, south of the Austrian-Hungarian possesions.
8: Wilhelm II calls military conference at Potsdam (over Haldane's comment) note: Some scholars (i.e., Fisher) see this as the turning point when Germany formulated plans for a war with Britain, but there was no follow-up on this.
President Elect Wilson appointed the Jesuit educated Catholic, Francis Tumulty as his personal secretary. Wilson received a barrage of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic mail on the issue, alleging that Tumulty would hold back correspondence dealing with Protestant affairs while promoting Catholic interests. Despite publicly defending Tumulty, it must have given him some second thoughts on publicly endorsing Irish matters during his administration. Wilson, in spite of his Presbyterian and Scots-Irish background, was clearly unsympathetic towards Ulster Unionists.
A spy scare amongst the Clan na Gael executive resulted when a senior member of the circle died. One of the executive going through a trunk for insurance papers found letters showing that since 1900, the deceased had been in the pay of the British Secret Service and had sent information on Clan activities to a number of British contacts in the US, including the Consul-Gneral in New York, Captain Armstrong. The correspondence showed there was a second agent in Philadelphia, checking on the activitieis of the first and while he was in a failry prominent position, his identity could only be guessed at.
Hits of 1912:
‘Waiting for the Robert E Lee’
‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’
‘When I lost you’
The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 resulted in an increased desire on the part of Serbia to obtain the parts of Austria-Hungary inhabited by Slavic peoples, strengthened Austro-Hungarian suspicion of Serbia, and left Bulgaria and Turkey, both defeated in the wars, with a desire for revenge. Germany, disappointed because Turkey had been deprived of its European territory by the Balkan Wars, increased the size of its army. France responded by increasing peacetime military service from two to three years. Following the example of these nations, all the others of Europe in 1913 and 1914 spent huge sums for military preparedness.
At the US Democratic Party Convention in Baltimore, Woodrow Wilson’s candidacy for the presidency was strongly opposed by Tamany Hall. Present was Judge Cohalan, as adviser to Charles F. Murphy, leader of Tamanay. Wilson was finally accepted, but only on the 40th ballot and marked the cards of the Irish-American leadership, including Judge Cohalan.
The telephone systems throughout the U.K. and Ireland were nationalised with the General Post Office taking over the management of telecomunications from the National Telephone Company.
Limerick born, Michael O’Shaughnessy (1864-1934) became City Engineer of San Francisco (1912-34), rebuilding much of the city’s infrastructure following the 1906 earthquake.
Former Prison Service Engineer and Lord Lieutenant Private Secretary, Max Green was appointed to the General Prisons Board by the Liberals as a concession to the Irish Parliamentary Party. He was to remain in office for 10 years, until killed while trying to stop an armed robbery in Stephen’s Green April 1922.
2:
The Irish Times commented on a newly published book that openly promoted an independent Irish State.’The Framework of Home Rule’ was written by Erskine Childers, writer of the bestselling ‘Riddle of the Sands’ in 1904.
British War Staff established
French Army General Staff makes the offensive à outrance official French military doctrine in it's Regulations for the Conduct of Large Units
5:
Colonel Wallace, Secretary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland applies to Belfast Magistrates for permission to legally begin drilling men in defence of the realm, in fact to oppose Home Rule.
French Senate initiates an investigative committee into Cailloux's role in the Agadir Crisis and suspicions about Calloux's "Germanophilia" became widespread; these sentiments led to the fall of the "Cailloux" government during 1912; Cailloux still maintained enough political power that he was back in his "old" post of Minister of Finance
6: US – New Mexico becomes the 47th state of the Union.
8: Jeannie Wyse Power, the Vice President of Sinn Fein said on agitation for female sufferage: ‘As an Irish nationalist I cannot see why there should be any antagonism between the Irish womens demand for citizenship and the demand for a native Parliament. Our clim is that we shall not be debarred merely by sex from the rights of citizens’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
15: Augustine Birrel, the Chief Secretary in an aside with John Dillon of the Irish Party on a move to allow the vote for women ‘I don’t see how I could remain in a Cabinet which has adopted en bloc female sufferage, married and single…I believe the wire pullers are satisified no such amendment can pass.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
17: Captain Robert Scott and his party finally reached the South Pole – only to discover that his Norwegian rival had beaten him by a month.
19:
Winston Churchill, then a Liberal MP, announced that he would attend a Pro-Home Rule rally in Belfast on February 8th, in support of John Redmond and the Irish Nationalist Parlimanentary Party. Property owners in the city lobbied Belfast Corporation to cancel the Churchill/Redmond booking of the Ulster Hall as there was every likelihood of damage in event of a probable riot. Before the Corporation could comment, the Belfast Unionists rented the hall for the night prior to the rally meeting, making it clear that they would occupy the building and so prvent the rally from going ahead. Churchill then attempted to rent the Exhibition Hall in the Botanical Gardens, with the Unionists also doing the same. The Exhibition Hall management refused both applications and Churchill had to settle for the Celtic Park football pitch.
22: Frederick Smith, an anti-Home Rule Tory MP said in Liverpool ‘There was no length to which Ulster would not be entitled to go, however desperate or unconditional, in carrying the quarrel, if the quarrel was wickidly fixed upon them’
Sharing the podium was Carson, who spoke of the action taken to prevent Churchill from using Ulster Hall to speak in favour of Home Rule: ‘If they [ Ulster Unionists ] did anything else, they would have been false to the position in which they were placed. If that is inciting to riot, here I am’
26: Over 30,000 people attended protest rallies in Ulster against British Government proposals to grant Home Rule. Preceeded by Lambeg Drums, people came in farm carts, traps and charabancs to Omagh to hear MP Sir Edward Carson announce’ If we cannot remain as we are, we will take matters into our own hands’.
Sir Roger Casement wrote another phamphlet entitled ‘Ireland and the British Army’ arguing that the British Army does not protect Ireland and Irishmen would be better employed looking after Ireland’s interests at home and in Parliament than shoring up British occupation of other nations.
28: Birth of US Artist Jackson Pollock ( d. 11.8.56 )
A Presbyterian minister, Rev J.B.Armour argued the case for Home Rule from a Presbyterian viewpoint ‘..the secret disciples of Home Rule are not only large but an increasing number…the belief that democracy in Ireland would become a persecutor of Protestants..can only arise in the minds of those who hate democracy and all it’s works..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
February 1912
4: Big freeze throughout Ireland and Britain as artic winds drop temperatures to –35f.
Joffre tells (French) Supreme War Council that he was counting on British for 6 infantry and 1 cavalry divisions to be ready for action in Mauberge area by 15th day of mobilization
7: Kaiser announces Army and Navy Bills
8:
Prior to the Churchill/Redmond Home Rule Rally in Belfast, 5,000 troops and cavalry were sent to the city from the South to keep order. Churchill received a hostile reception in Belfast, and at a rally in Celtic Park to a mostly Catholic crowd, he said ‘ What harm could Irish ideas and sentiment, and Irish dreams, if given free play in an Irish Parliament, do to the strong structure of British power? Was it not worthwhile for the British statesmen to try and make their life long partner happy and contented and free? Let [ Protestant Ulster ] fight for the spread of charity, tolerance and enlightment among men. Then indeed gentlemen, Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.’
The meeting turned out to be a ‘damp squib’ and as soon as it was over, he caught the first train back to Britain.
In exile in Switzerland, Lenin began publishing a daily newspaper, Pravda.
In London, the Committee of Imperial Defense finalised secret plans that in event of war with Germany, the Royal Navy amongst other measures, would cut the Imperial German telegraph cables connecting the country with France, Spain, Africa and the Americas.
The Connecticut Irish Association presented Captain Anthony of the Catalpa Rescue with $1,000.
12: China – Child Emperor abdicated and the Manchu rule came to an end after 300 years.
14: US – Arizona became the 48th State of the Union.
28: The worlds first parachute jump from an airplane takes place over Missouri by Albert Berry. It opened.
30: Paris: Copying Albert Berry, Franz Richelt jumped from the Eiffel Tower with a parachute. It didn’t open.
The Woolworth building in New York opened in Lower Manhattan. The most spectacular skyscraper at the time, towering 792 feet.
John Redmond in conversation with sufragettes said ‘Women’s sufferage will, I believe, be the ruin of our western civilisation. It will destroy the home, challenge the headship of man laid down by God. It may come in your time, I hope not in mine.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p26
March 1912
1: London – militant suffragettes went on a window smashing rampage through the West-End. More than 120 women arrested including the leader, Emmeline Pankhurst. Number 10 Downing Street was also hit. In a concerted effort, the attacks took place simultaeounously with the women making no attempts to escape.
4: Suffragette raid on the House of Commons results in 96 women arrested.
Serbia: The Young Turks revolution (1908-1909) and the Turko-Italian War (1911-1912) provided the Balkan states with an opportunity to retaliate against the Turks, their former oppressors. In March 1912, Serbia arranged a treaty of alliance with Bulgaria. Greece concluded a military convention with Bulgaria the following May.
12: A Royal Commission justified vivescection as ‘morally justifiable’.
18: London – Churchill states Government intention to maintain Royal Navy superioroty in Europe. Churchill announces enlarging the RN, and removal of fleet from Malta to home waters (and with the French realigning their fleet)
22: New German naval program begun marking failure of Anglo-German talks on naval forces
27: Future British Labour Prime Minister – James Callaghan (1976-79 ).
28: London – The Womens Enfranchisment Bill was defeated by 14 votes in it's second reading in the House of Commons. The Irish Party managed to raise the ire of suffragettes as it voted with the Government. While a majority of the Irish nationalist MPs were sympathetic to women’s suffrage, Redmond was impacably opposed and believed that if the Bill was passed, it could destabilise the Government and as a result, the passage of the 3rd Home Rule Bill. Christabel Pankhurst, the leading British suffragette, promptly sent a poster parade to Parliament Square with the message ‘No votes for women – no home rule’.
‘Mr Redmond sullied the Irish flag by opposing one movement of liberation in the supposed interests of another. His metholds are not a model to imitate’ Journalist H.N.Brailsford.
Liz Curtis ‘The Cause of Ireland – from the United Irishmen to Partition’. Beyond the Pale, Belfast 1994. p221
31:In an enormous demonstration in Dublin, Patrick Pearse shared a dias with John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party on the Third Home Rule Bill: ‘The Bill which we support today will be for the good of Ireland…but if we are tricked this time…let the Gall understand that if we are cheated once more there will be red war in Ireland.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
Irish suffragettes stepped up their campaign for womens voting rights in the new Home Rule Bill. Members of the Irish Women’s Franchise League parade with sandwich boards which were forcibly removed by members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
April 1912
The Wolfe Tone Monument Association was renamed the ‘Wolfe Tone and United Irishmen Memorial Committee’ with Tom Clarke as President and Sean MacDermott as Vice-President. Both went to Limerick to visit the ageing Fenian, former fellow prisoner and father-in-law, John Daly. Clarke sent a photograph of the three to William Crossin in the US with the comments: ‘You wil be please to know that things are better here than they have been in many years. Have no fear, these young fellows – the ablest in the country, are all rightm with clean hearts and having their heads screwed on the right way. Never have I felt more hopeful and as time goes along that hope is strengtened.’
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Press, Co. Kerry. P36
9: Bonar Law attended a large demonstration of some 240,000 people at which Carson was principal speaker saying of Law ‘He will have no shrinking and no compromise…under no circumstances will we submit to Home Rule. Raise your hands! Repeat after me – ‘Never under any circumstances will we submit to Home Rule’
Charles Callan Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom-1866-1922’. Devin-Adair, New York 1957. P141
At the centre of the scene was a 90 foot flagpole flying the largest union jack ever woven.
Later that evening in London, the MD of the Marconi company, Godfrey Isaacs was havign dinner at the Savoy with the Asquith Government Attorney General, his brother Rufus. Godfrey tipped him off that Marconi’s US subsidiary was about to issue 1.4 million $1 shares and that if he bought at pre-market prices, he could make a killing. Rufus snapped up 10,000 shares and shared the news with the Chief Whip, Alexander Murray who bought 1,000 and a further 2,500, this time with Liberal Party funds. Lloyd George got wind of the deal and snapped up 1,000. Insider trading rumours were flying by summer but as it turned out, all three were burned badly – holding too long.
11: The Third Home Rule Bill was introduced by Asquith to a packed House of Commons and set in motion powerful forces that had been gathering in anticipation of the Bill. While the Home Rule Bill was certainly not a seperatist scheme, it did offer a mild federal proposal and a narrow measure of autonomy to Ireland. Under it’s provisions, the island would be administered by a separate parliament with jurisdiction over it’s own internal affairs. The Irish House of Commons meeting in Dublin would have 164 MPs and Senate, 40 members. Ulster would have representation of 59 MP’s. Control over military affairs, foreign relations, trade, revenue, coinage, postal service and the police would remain with Westminster. Ireland would remain linked to the crown and unable to act independently with policing also held by British authorities for a period of 6 years. 42 Irish members were to continue representing the country at Westminster. Overall, the Bill allowed for little autonomy and even less authority over local Irish, let alone Ulster affairs. As it was, Ulster was guaranteed an overrepresentation in the lower house of the Irish legislature, and the Senate was expected to include a substantial number of Protestants. Moreover, the Irish Government would not be permitted to fund or show partiality towards any faith.
‘ Little more, indeed, than glorified local government’FSL Lyons quoted in Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P7
Reaction to the bill was immediate. From the Nationalists, there was a sense of profound disapointment and anger at the level of autonomy offered. Griffith condemned the Bill outright as ‘hopelessly inadequate..if this be liberty, the lexicographers have deceived us.’ For the constitutional Nationalists, the realisiation of a generation that a form of indpendence had been achieved through constitutional means and was celebrated. Redmond’s Irish Party received congratulations from British Domionons around the world. The reaction from the Ulster Unionists & Conservatives was stronger and more vocal. This opposition believed that the bill was the first stage in a move to give Ireland complete independence with Carson saying that if the people of England permitted coercion of their ‘kith and kin’ in Ulster, the British Army would never stand the strain. For many, there was open discussion of resisting Home Rule to the extent of imperiling the British constitutional system. Economic disaster also loomed in the eyes of many Unionists as a result of the proposed Home Rule legislation. The Solemn League and Covenant concurred forecasting that ‘ Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well being of Ulster as well as to the whole of Ireland’
Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P7
While economic arguments achieved a wide consensus of opinion amongst Northern Unionists, the one unifying slogan that knitted the similar but diverse opinions was “Home Rule is Rome Rule”.
‘Home rule, the covenanters reassured themselves would be ‘ subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship and perilous to the unity of the Empire.’ The Reverened Samuel Prenter, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church captured the essence of these fears:
‘The contention of the Irish protestatnts is that neither their civil nor their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an Irish parliament, civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant of the Vatican…the Church is hostile to the liberty of the Press, the liberty pf public speech, to modernism in science, in litterarure, philosophy…there are simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome.’
Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P9
Opposition also came from within the Liberals, with the Liberal MP, Agar Roberts proposing during the second reading of the Third Home Rule Bill in May , that counties Derry, Down, Antrim and Armagh should be excluded from Home Rule. Carson in turn protested at the exclusion of Tyrone and Fermanagh.
‘Nothing had changed since the Belfast Newsletter declared in 1886 than an Irish parliament ‘would be the laughing stock of the civilised world’
Prof JJ Lee. ‘Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society’ Cambridge University Press 1990. P7
John Redmond dismissed the concept of Unionist claims to British control over Ireland and the ‘Two nations’ theory and insisted that the Unionists were part of the Irish Nation and therefore belonged to a Home Rule parliament. He conceeded that unionism could be represented with a version of ‘Home rule within Home rule’. While Redmond achieved some success in his dealings with the British Government, he failed in his dealings with Belfast. In his opinion, a majority consensus did not feature and little was done to allay Unionist fears of a Nationalist majority over a Loyalist minority.
Arthur Griffith on the Home Rule Bill : ‘If this is liberty, the lexiocographers have deceived us’
Cardinal Michael Logue, Primate of Ireland on the Bill ‘…a skeleton on which to hang restrictions’
Henry Ford visited Cork city and selected a racecourse at the Marina as a proposed factory site. The story is told that while the representatives of the major banks waited patiently by the quays for the docking of Ford’s ship and the promise of a lucrative and major account, the Hibernian Bank stole the iniative on the competitors. Their representative joined the ship en-route, met with Ford and secured the banking partnership.
Sean MacDiarmada contracted polio which left him partially disabled but he continued his work with the I.R.B.
10: White Star liner, ‘Titanic’ had a close miss with the liner, SS New York as she left on her maiden voyage from Southampton.
In his Lenten Pastoral for 1912, the Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Dr Edward O’Dwyer commented that ‘hitherto the question of votes for women ‘has been merely academic, and provoked a smile of amusement, rather than serious consideration. Now it has come within the range of practical politics’. He felt sure, however, that most of his women listeners would regard the idea that they would have the vote as ‘an absurdity’ and be glad that Catholic reverence for women had ‘restricted the activities of woman’s life to the peace and quiet of her home. She was made by God too frail, too delicate, too good, to mix in the rough ways of men in the world’
The Irish Times Book of The Century. Fintan O’Toole. Gill & Macmillan 1999. p53
11: Titanic lay at anchor just off Queenstown
12: Irish American leaders sent a cable of congratulations to Redmond on ‘the marvelous success of the movement and expressed their confidence in the Bill’ Signed by 15 prominent Irish Americans including Jam O’Gorman, Martin Keogh, John Crimmins, John Quinn, William Gaynor, Morgan O’Brien, W.Bourke Cockran and William McAdoo’
‘American Opinion & The Irish Question 1910-23’ Francis M Carroll – Gill & McMillian & St. Martin’s Press 1978. p20
Irish Home Rule Bill debated in House of Commons
from The Irish Times 12 April 1912
Even Home Rule Bills lose their 'drawing' power by repetition. Though all the seats on the floor of the House of Commons were occupied today, there was no necessity to bring in chairs for the accommodation of members, as was done in 1886 and 1893, and there was plenty of room in the side galleries. It was noticed that Mr Bottomley put in an appearance for, I believe, the first time this session.
In the Peers' Gallery were Lords Dunraven, MacDonnell, Monteagle, and Oranmore and Browne, while the distinguished strangers included Sir Edward Clarke, who led the Unionist attack nineteen years ago; Sir George Reid, Mr Commissioner Bailey, the Russian and American Ambassadors, and two or three Irish Roman Catholic dignitaries.
Just before three o'clock a great burst of cheering from the Ministerialists heralded the entry of the Prime Minister from behind the Speaker's chair. A minute later Mr Redmond came in from the Lobby entrance, and received a similar greeting from his supporters. Shortly afterwards it was the turn of the Unionists to give a rousing welcome to Sir Edward Carson.
The few questions on the paper were run through with great rapidity, and it was only five minutes past three when Mr Asquith rose. He began with a reference to Mr Gladstone's mammoth speeches of 1886 and 1893, and declared that they contained 'the classic exposition' of the case between Great Britain and Ireland.
He would not attempt to 'bend the bow of Ulysses,' but would take up the narrative where Mr Gladstone left it. Mr Asquith is usually very concise, but in this instance he occupied more than half an hour with preliminary arguments. First he dwelt upon the persistence of the Irish demand, as witnessed at eight successive General Elections.
The Government did not underrate the importance of North-East Ulster's opposition, but could not admit the right of a minority to veto the verdict of the vast body of their countrymen. But in other respects Ireland had changed. There had been a great improvement in social order, so that Home Rule was no longer a counsel of despair. Irish relations with Great Britain had been largely affected by
Imperial legislation, the working of which had blunted some of the arrows in the Unionist quiver. In particular, land purchase and old age pensions had made the idea of separation more unthinkable than ever. Turning to the Imperial aspect of the question, Mr Asquith dwelt on the imperative need for emancipating Parliament from local burdens. Our present system was one of 'centralised impotence.'
Home Rule all round could not be accomplished at one blow, but the present bill was introduced with the full and direct purpose of further applications of the principle. Here the Opposition broke in with sarcastic cries of 'Preamble.'
After some remarks upon Colonial analogies, Mr Asquith at last entered upon the exposition of the bill, the details of which you will have set forth in your news columns. Towards the end of his closely packed oration he broke into an attack upon Mr Bonar Law's speech at Belfast, sneered at 'the new style,' which was 'all very well for Ulster,' and seemed deliberately to provoke the storm of interruptions and gibes which at once arose from the Unionist benches. It was an unworthy conclusion to a speech which otherwise had been interesting and innocuous.
Sir Edward Carson, who led off for the Opposition, is not the man to refuse a challenge, and he quickly showed that he was in fine fighting form. A more ridiculous and fantastic proposal had never been put before any Parliament. It was absolutely unworkable. A safeguard for the minority was a nominated Senate - a wise proposal, that, from a Radical Government.
The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament meant nothing, and was only inserted to satisfy some uneasy consciences. The Government policy had twice been rejected by the voters when it was submitted to them in concrete form. Would they allow this bill to be put before the electorate? 'Answer,' cried the Opposition. But Mr Asquith sat in mumchance. Then Sir Edward pointed out that, so long as the Government had an independent majority, we heard nothing of Home Rule.
It was only now, when the Constitution was in suspense, and they were dependent on Nationalist support, that they felt constrained to introduce it. He claimed that the Unionist policy had been thoroughly justified by the events of the last twenty years in Ireland, and quoted from the speeches by Lord MacDonnell and Mr T. W. Russell in support of his assertion.
Mr Redmond rose next, and began by declaring that this was a 'great and historical occasion,' deserving calm and serious discussion, and he regretted that it was apparently the interest of some persons to engender passion. This sounded like a hit at Mr Asquith, but, presumably was intended for Sir Edward Carson.
The rest of his speech consisted largely of an endorsement of the Prime Minister's assertions. No word of criticism broke the even tenor of his praise. Even as regards finance, he considered this a better bill than either of its predecessors. It was 'a great measure' and an 'adequate' measure, and he would recommend the coming Convention to accept it.
The Labour Leader (Mr Ramsay Macdonald) added nothing new to the situation. He extended a warm welcome to the bill. Lord Castlereagh, who said he was proud to be a descendant of one who was responsible for the Act of Union, naturally had no good word for the bill. Mr William O'Brien, who followed was, of course, listened to with much attention.
He made more of the fact that he had not been privileged to see a draft of the measure, a lack which rendered it impossible for him to give a considered or final judgment upon its terms, but in a general way he remarked that it was a complex bill and one of transcendent importance to Ireland. While he wished the government had been more courageous, and given to the Irish Legislature complete power over the purse, he congratulated the Cabinet upon its determination to complete land purchase under Imperial auspices, this being a more vital necessity.
For very nearly an hour, Captain Craig held forth against the bill, and other speakers followed on both sides, including Mr Eugene Wason, Sir Thomas Esmonde, and Mr Harry Lawson. Mr Ronald MacNeill, as an Ulsterman proud of his race, congratulated the House on having got away from vague and bombastic rhetoric to definite proposals.
He utterly denied Mr Redmond's statement that Parnell had accepted the bill of 1886 as a final settlement, and quoted Parnell's contrary statement of St Patrick's Day, 1891. He suggested that the Nationalist leader's acceptance of today's bill was liable to similar modifications. Mr MacNeill's speech made a considerable impression. The debate was adjourned on the motion of Mr Balfour.
Clan na Gael and the Independent Nationalists saw the Bill as little more than ‘Sham autonomy’ and urged Redmond to reject it.
13: Bourke Cockran wrote to Redmond extending his wishes but commenting that ‘the bill does not seem to be particularly satisfying to either Nationalist or Unionist’
‘American Opinion & The Irish Question 1910-23’ Francis M Carroll – Gill & McMillian & St. Martin’s Press 1978. p20
15:
Irish public shows lack of interest in Home Rule Bill
from The Irish Times 15 April 1912
A remarkable lack of general interest in the Home Rule Bill is manifesting itself amongst all classes. So far as Dublin is concerned, the bill, which was heralded with so many words, has fallen like a stick from a spent rocket.
Honest Nationalists, if not hostile in their criticism, are lukewarm in their general approval, while Unionist business men openly condemn it as political trickery, in which they can see no good. The bill is looked upon with serious apprehension by the Civil servants, who are proposed to be transferred to the Irish Executive.
Legal servants, when asked for their views, preferred to wait for the text of the bill before expressing any opinion. The Post Office officials were equally reticent.
A retired official stated that undoubtedly the postal service at present laboured under many grievances, but he was inclined to think that a transfer to a Nationalist Executive would only mean to the postal service that it has, to use a homely phrase, got 'out of the frying pan and into the fire.' This phrase, so far as our inquiries have gone, practically sums up public opinion in Dublin on the measure.
Way to progress
from The Irish Times 15 April 1912
If only some of the women connected with the suffrage movement of a few years ago would only come forward and tackle the problems that they thought so strongly about in those days, some progress of a real and lasting sort would be possible.
Perhaps it is that fighting women, as well as fighting men, are bad politicians. Few soldiers have shown in the British Parliament any outstanding capacity for dealing with constitutional procedure, and it may be - although I hope events will falsify this conclusion - that the women who won the vote are incapable of carrying through the reforms that they promised us in their fighting speeches.
If they are to function they must have a rallying point; they must have leaders and a programme. And then they can build up an organisation without which no political movement can hope to succeed. If they remain in their retirement the cause for which they risked life and limb and liberty is lost.
Women who were to introduce a new and finer note into politics will have fought in vain if they allow the vital questions of the day to be discussed with less fire and conviction than they would impart into a teatime talk about the latest thing in hats!
Surely those who gained notoriety in those days are not afraid of the hard work and the application of politics to the problems they then propounded and the grievances they then spoke about so eloquently.
The task they are called upon to shoulder is not so spectacular as the militant suffrage movement, but it is far more serviceable. A.C.B.
Cambon proposes to Nicholson a renewal of Landsdowne's "May 1905 offer" of an alliance; Grey writes Cambon with promises but no formal arrangement
2.20am - 1,490 of the 2,340 passengers and crew of the Titanic drowned in the icy waters of the North Atlantic following the ships collision with an iceberg and it’s sinking some 2 ½ hours later. The ‘unsinkable’ ship slid beneath the waves with all lights blazing. Three millionaires got away on the first boat, yet others remained behind.
16:
John Redmond spoke in the House of Commons on the first reading of the Third Home Rule Bill: ‘Ireland today is peaceful beyond record. She has almost entirley, I believe, cast aside her suspicions and her rancour toward this country; and England, on her side, is, I believe, today more willing than ever she was in her past history to admit Ireland on terms of equality, liberty and loyalty into that great sisterhood of nations that makes up the British Empire.’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
The Bill was passed by 360 to 266 and progressed to the second reading.
Titanic
from The Irish Times 16 April 1912
Almost as we go to press the awful news reaches us of the loss of the Titanic, with nearly seventeen hundred out of the two thousand three hundred and fifty-eight passengers and crew who formed her immense burden of human life. The telegrams are brief.
They upset all the reports which reached us between midday and midnight, but it is to be feared that they are true. We cannot be surprised that the public received with something like complete incredulity the first reports yesterday morning that the giant liner was sinking off the Newfoundland banks, as the result of a collision with an iceberg. To sudden tidings of another tragedy of the sea we are only too well accustomed.
But the imagination halts at the suggestion that the latest and most marvellous mechanisms of ocean traffic are exposed to dangers every whit as awful as those which lie before any tramp steamer of a few tons burden. 'Floating palaces' is a common phrase of description for such vessels as the Titanic, or her sister-ship, the Olympic, and even vessels of much smaller size.
The Titanic was appointed throughout in a way which no hotel on solid earth could hope to rival. She had suites of luxurious apartments, carried a large staff of first-class cooks, and was fitted with spacious lounges containing all kinds of costly furniture and decorations. The sight of a swimming bath helped to convey to the mind of the traveller who wandered through her corridors the suggestion that he was in a magnificent hotel.
There was nothing to remind him that he was on board ship except the far-off throbbing of the screw. We do not suppose that those who parted from the Titanic's passengers at Southampton or Queenstown felt any more emotion than if their friends were stepping into the security of a train.
We can imagine that this happy and comfortable hotel-party of hundreds of passengers were inclined to regret that their voyage across the Atlantic was nearly ended. Then, with all the horror of the totally unexpected, just before midnight, they suffered a sea-change.
A sudden shock of collision, and the largest vessel in the world lay helpless, fighting a losing battle against time, while her wireless apparatus sent out urgent messages that she was sinking and called for help.
The substantial reports which reached an anxious public throughout yesterday of the saving of the passengers and crew by means of the boats of other liners, hastily summoned by wireless telegraphy, appear to have had no foundation; their origin has yet to be explained. If it be, indeed, true that only 675 women and children have been saved out of the ship's immense passenger list, this is one of the supreme tragedies of the sea.
The loss of the Titanic finally disproves the confident assertion that her system of watertight compartments made her absolutely unsinkable. It is hardly profitable to speculate at present upon the causes of the collision. But this accident, following upon the collision between the Olympic and HMS Hawke, seems to lend colour to the theory then put forward that the suction of such enormous vessels exposes them to a danger hitherto unknown.
These two accidents to the largest vessels in the world must give pause to naval architects who scout the suggestion that the very size of modern vessels may be a source of weakness to them. It is, at least, certain that misfortune has dogged the steps by which the tonnage of liners has increased to that of the two largest examples that the world has yet known.
The Olympic had to be returned shortly after completion to the hands of her builders. Her sister-ship, whose building cost more than that of a Dreadnought, has ended her maiden voyage at the bottom of the Atlantic.
17: Total eclipse of the sun visible in Dublin.
Redmond organised a national convention to discuss the Home Rule Bill. Suffragettes attempted to attend the meeting but were barred by police. That night, ‘Votes for Women’ was painted on the office building of the United Irish League.
18: New York – SS Carpathia arrives with Titanic survivors.
20: Bram Stoker, novelist (author of Dracula 1897 ) dies aged 65.
24: New York – two ‘Titanic’ officers say hundreds were lost because of inadequate numbers of lifebaots aboard the liner.
Justin McCarthy, Home Rule politician, leader of the anti-Parnelites, historian and novelist dies aged 82.
May 1912
1: Canada announced that the ‘Titanic’ dead are to be buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
2: An inquiry into the sinking of the ‘Titanic’ opens in London.
4: Bonar Law in conversation with the King, advised that if the Home Rule Bill were to be passed, probably in 1914, he would have a choice to either accept it or ‘dismiss your ministers and choose others who will support you in vetoing it – and in either case half your subjects will think you have acted against them’…at this the King reportedly ‘turned red’ and Bonar Law said afterwards ‘I think I have given the King the worst five minutes that he hads had for a long time’
Liz Curtis ‘The Cause of Ireland – from the United Irishmen to Partition’. Beyond the Pale, Belfast 1994. p238
The King was receive far more complaints and advice from his ministers.
5: Russia – first issue of the Bolshevik newspaper ‘Pravda’ hits Moscow streets.
US – The first slide fastener or ‘zipper’ was invented by Gideon Sundback.
7: The Capuchins report to Rome that their temperance crusade has resulted in more than a million pledges since 1905.
9: London – Home Rule Bill gets through the Commons – winning a majority of 94 at it's second reading in the House of Commons. Herbert Asquith announced that ‘The British people, just and generous by nature, are not going to be frightened out of doing a just thing by the language of intimidation.’
The Bill now went to the committee stage, when amendments could be put forward.
10: Carson speaking after the second reading of the third Home Rule Bill:’Assuming…that the people of this country { Britain ] would allow the coercion of their kith and kin [ Unionists ] – what would be the effect upon the army? Many officers would resign; no army could stand such a strain upon them’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
14: Denmark: Fredrick V111 died and succeded by his son, reigning as Christian X. ( The older brother of Haakon V11 of Norway. )
21: Military bills and Lex Bassermann-Erzberger passed by Reichstag
28: Washington – US enquiry into the Titanic disaster returens a verdict of negligence.
29: Greece joins Balkan League
30: US Aviation pioneer, Wilbur Wright dies aged 45.
June 1912
1: Dublin – a mass sufferage meeting held in the city. Speakers included Constance Markievicz, Delia Larkin ( founder of the Irish Womn Worker’s Union and sister of James ) and Jennie Wyse-Power, vice-president Sinn Fein. The meeting passed a resolution calling for the Home Rule Bill to be amended to include votes for women. Copies that were sent to each cabinet minister and all Irish MPs were ignored.
11:
The concept of Partition within the island of Ireland was first proposed on this date when the Liberal Unionist MP for a Cornwall constituecy, T.C.Agar-Robartes introduced an amendment of the third Home Rule Bill for the exclusion of Antrim, Armagh, Down and Derry – in effect a partition of Ireland. It was opened by the Liberal Government and supported by the Conservative Leader, Bonar Law who stated that there were stronger influences than parliamentary majorities, and that a Government which ordered troops to enforce Home Rule would stand more chance of being lynched in London than Loyalists would stand of being shot in Belfast. As Roberts said ‘I have never heard that orange bitters will mix with Irish whiskey’
At this time, the Conservatives had been out of power since 1905 and ‘they sniffed a winning issue with the ‘empire in danger’ with Home Rule being ‘as much the occasion as the cause’ of their new style of violent opposition to the Liberal government.’ Home Rule support gave the Liberal minority government a majority in theHouse.
Asquith said ‘You can no more split Ireland into parts than you can split England or Scotland into parts’
13: Austria: Frau Vik Kunetiska elected Austria’s first woman MP but Prince Thun of Bohemia refused to sanction her election.
Eight membersof the Irish Womens Franchise League, including Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington were arrested for breaking windows of Government buildings in Dublin. Appearing before magistrates, they were fined and when refused to pay, were jailed.
18:
The Agar-Robarts amendment was defeated by 320 votes to 251.
Carson spoke after the defeat of the Home Rule Bill amendment to exclude 4 counties of Ulster: ‘The Government last night declared war against Ulster and have announced that the only soloution to this question is to drive them out of a community in which they are satisfied, into a community which they loathe, hate and detest. We will accept the declaration of war. We are not altogther unprepared’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
18: Andrew Bonar Law in the House of Commons: ‘If Ulster does resist by force…no Government would dare use their troops to drive them out…the Government which gave the order to employ troops for that purpose would run a greater risk of being lynched in London that the loyalists of Ulster would run of being shot in Belfast’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
O’Rahilly in a series of articles appearing the monthly Irish Freedom, argued that it was essential for Irishmen to be armed if they wanted their freedom. While never a member of the IRB, O’Rahilly held a ‘firm conviction that the British would never release their grip on Ireland until the Irish were in a position to compel them to do so by armed force.’
Aodogan O’Rahilly “Winding The Clock – O’Rahilly and the 1916 Rising” Lilliput Press, 1991.p83
28: Suffragettes start window smashing campaign at Post Offices and labour exchanges. The Irish Labour Party founded in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
29: Stockholm Olympic Games opens.
Derry – members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians attacked a Presbyterian Sunday School outing.
30: Belfast – following press reports of the Sunday School attack in Derry, unionist shipyard workers went on a rampage, expelling some 400 Catholic workers, injuring several seriously. Violence escalated throughout the shipyards in the following days aimed at Catholics and Protestant socialists.
July 1912
2: Catholic workers are expelled from the shipyards in Belfast.
10: Chief Secretary Birrell confirmed that 2,009 men had been ejected from their work at the Belfast shipyards, including some 300 Protestant socialists. The sectarian persecution continued for months.
18-20: British PM Asquith visits Ireland.
27: However, Partition came to be regarded as the only, workable solution to the Home Rule question.
Bonar Law intensified the threats of unconsituoonal resistance at a Conservative rally at Blenheim Palace, July 1912:
“ I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster will go, in which I shall not be ready to support them, and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people”.
Quoted by Mark Tierney. ”Modern Ireland”. Gill & McMillan, Dublin 1972. p55.
Frederick Smith at the rally said ‘Should it happen that Ulster is threatened with a violent attempt to incorporate her into an Irish Parliament with no appeal to the English electors, I say to Sir Edward Carson, appeal to the young men of England’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p27
Bonar Law also intended to approach the King and request he use Royal Veto in order to defeat Home Rule...”..else, half your subjects will think you have acted against them”.
Plans were now made for a mass protest in Ulster through signing a Solemn League and Covenant, along the lines of a 16th century Scottish Covenant. This was to take place in September 1912.
Little was done within Nationalist circles to placate some very obvious Ulster Unionist fears. John Redmond dismissed both Unionist claims to self-determination and to imperial rule in Ireland. He and many others were unable to understand that Ulster simply did not want Home Rule. Churchill publically criticised both Law and Carson for inciting the Unionists to civil war.
2: US: Woodrow Wilson nominated for the Democratic Party after five days of negotiating and 46 ballots.
3: A foot and mouth outbreak in Britian and Ireland.
20: Dublin: John Redmond injured slightly when English sufragettes Gladys Evans and Mary Leigh flung a small hatchet into the Prime Minister’s carriageas they drove through Dublin. ‘The women were hunted like rats in the city’ wrote Katherine Tynan, but they escaped to start an arson campaign at the Theatre Royal that evening where Asquith was due to speak at a Home Rule meeting. Prompt action by the male patrons managed to put the fires out and both Evans & Leigh were arrested.
21: Dublin – Asquith’s meeting went ahead in the Theatre Royal but was infiltrated by Hannah Sheey-Skeffington disguised as a clergyman, but swiftly ejected when she began heckling for votes. The IWFL organised an open air rally to coincide with Asquith’s meeting but were surrounded by an angry crowd. Several suffragettes were injured including Markievicz. English suffragettes Evan and Leigh were sentenced to 5 years penal servitude.
22: British navy recalls warships from the Mediteranean to the North Sea to counter a growing German fleet.
The New York Times weighed in on the Home Rule issue arguing that if this was good enough for the South of Ireland, then why should it not be applied to the North as well? ‘It is not easy to see why Ulster should be denied the degree of independence claimed for the people of Ireland, simply because they wish to use that independence to remain in the British Union, with their reights and powers as British subjects unimparired.’
A breakfast menu from RMS Mauretania dated Friday, July 26th 1912 includes:
Cantoloupe, Organges, Apples & Grape Fruit
Compote of peaches, baked apples and Prunes.
Oatmeal porridge, rolled oats, grape nuts, shredded wheat
Horlick’s malted milk, Boiled Cerealine
Grilled butterfish, Kippered Herrings, Fried Perch & Pickled Ling Fish
Eggs: boiled, fried, turned, poached, scrambeled, omlette.
Sailsbury steak, American dry hash, Calf’s brains, Cumberland Ham & Wiltshire bacon.
Potatoes: chipped, mashed and jacket.
Sirloin steaks, mutton chops, lambs kidneys, tomato sausages
Choice of cold meats, watercress and Radishes
Rice cakes with maple syrup or honey
White & Graham rolls, Vienna Bread, Coattage Loaves, Soda Scones, Corn Bread, Buckwheat Cakes & conserves.
All served with Ceylonese or Chinese teas, Coffee or Cocoa.
Lynch Family Archives. Folder 1 – 1890-1914
30: Japan – Emperor Maiji died and succeded by his son who reigned as Taisho until 1926.
31: Asquith responded to Bonar Law’s speech at Blenheim on the 27th: ‘What answer are you going to make to the vast majority of the Irish people when they [Ulster Unionists] resist the considered determination of Parliament and appeal to the language of the right honourable genetlman to justify their action?’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
Asquith visited Ireland during the month. At one of his meetings, the celebrated Dublin character and full time radical, Francis Sheehy Skeffington was determined to protest for sufferage. Forewarned the ushers kept a close look out for the red bearded little man in his distinctive plus-fours – but failed to stop a red bearded priest from entering. In the middle of the PM’s speech, he began shouting out ‘Votes for wee-men…votes for wee-men’. Francis had scored again.
August 1912
14: Women’s sufferage began to use a new weapon – English and Irish sufergetters jailed for public order offences and refused political prisoner status, began hunger strikes. Hannah Sheehy Skeffington recalled ‘Hunger Strike was then a new weapon – we were the first to try it out in Ireland – had we but known we were pioneers in a long line…’
Balkans: Tension increased steadily in the Balkan Peninsula during the summer of 1912, especially after August 14, when Bulgaria dispatched a note to the Turks demanding that Macedonia, then a Turkish province, be granted autonomy.
15: Birrell in a letter to John Dillon of the Irish Party expressed his opinion on suffragettes: ‘Personally I am dead against forcible feeding which always ends with the release of the prisoner long befor eher time. I want to keep these ladies unde rlock and key for five years and I am willing to feed them Priest’s Champagne and Michaelmas Geese* all the time, if it can be done…these wretched hags…are obstinate to the point of death..’
* Bread and water.
17: The Ulster Unionist Council announced that September 28th would be designated in Ulster as Ulster Day, when loyal Orangemen would pledge themselves to a sacred Covenant. The Council intended this as a safety valve for popular emotion, while simultaenously demonstrating the solidarity of Ulster Protestantism.
20: Founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth dies aged 83. The army name and uniforms were adopted in 1877.
25: Former East German Leader – Erich Honecker born.
Asquith’s visit to Dublin offered a perfect opportunity for many suffragists to protest. Not confining themselves soely to the picket line and peaceful demonstarations, one deftly threw a hatchet at the PM as he rode in an open landau through the streets of Dublin to a meeting in the Theatre Royal while two English suffragettes set fire to the Theatre. While it earned the admiration of their Irish comrades, it also got them 5 years penal servitude in Mountjoy. Windows were smashed and the home of John Dillon was attacked the same day.
September 1912
The first flying race in Ireland was on September 7 1912 from Dublin to Belfast and back.
12: Dr William McKean, the former Presbyterian Moderator preaching in Ulster Hall said ‘The Irish Question is at bottom a war against Protestantism; it is an attempt to establish a Roman Catholic ascendancy in Ireland..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
14: Rioting takes place between Celtic and Linfield soccer supporters in Celtic Park. Belfast.
21: Carson speaking in Coleraine against the Home Rule Bill; ‘In the event of this proposed Parliament being thrust upon us, we solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves not to recognise it’s authority…I do not car eyuppence whether it is treason or not..’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
22: Typhoon in Japan kills hundreds.
Sir Roger Casement published and circulated privately an article on the looming European war and it’s causes ‘The Balance of Power’
23
The Clan na Gael Convention opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Amongst those attending was Sean MacDermott, recovering from polio and representing the new I.R.B Supreme Council. There he reported to the Eexcutive that the strenght of the organisation was 1,660 members in Ireland, 367 in Britian and the circulation of Irish Freedom was 6,000 copies monthly.
Of the 1,660 members, 836 were in Leinster, 300 in Ulster, 250 in Connaught and 260 in Munster. The Fianna Eireann strenght was put around 1,000. McGarrity’s notes also record the ‘blocks in the way’ as being ‘Hibernians, the Parliamentary Party, clergy, spy system, want of employment, [&] want of money.
Sean Cronin. ‘The McGarrity Papers’. Anvil Press, Co. Kerry. P33
McGarrity moved that the budget to fund the Irish movement be increased to $2,000 a year. It was passed.
24: Lord Willoughby Dail Eireann Broke, a British opponent of Home Rule at a rally in Dromore, Co. Down said ‘Peaceable metholds would be tried first, but if the last resort was forced on them by the radical Government, the latter would find that they had not only Orangemen against them, but that every white man in the British Empire would be giving support, either moral or active, to one of the most loyal populations that ever fought under the Union Jack’.
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p28
25
Joseph McGarrity, Clan na Gael District Officer for Philadelphia, was elected to the Clan na Gael Executive and became a member of the Revoloutinary Directory. From this date on, he was to wield a great influence over Irish affairs.
26:
At a Clan na Gael Eexutive meeting, McGarrity pressed both John Devoy and fellow 1867 veteran, Colonel Rickard O’Sullivan-Burke to write their memoirs
28
On ‘Ulster Day’ observed as a public holiday throughout Ulster, the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ was signed throughout the province to protest against Home Rule and defy both public opinion in Ireland and parliamentary opinion in Britian. In Belfast City Hall, Carson was the first to sign and followed throughout the province by some 471,414 people. ( Female Unionists were not allowed sign the Covenant, but not to be outdone, signed their own equivalent. ) In Dublin, 2000 men who gave proof of their Ulster birth, signed along with similar signings throughout Britain. Ultimately, almost 500,000 signatures were collected.
Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant
Being convinced in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizienship and perilous to the unity of the Empire, We whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V., humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do herby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant throughout this time of our threatened calamity to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in using all our means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament in Ireland.
And in the event of such a parliament being forced upon us we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its authority.
In sure confidence that God will defend the right we hereto subscribe our names.
And, further, we individually declare that we have not alreadys igned this Covenant.
The above was signed by me at …………………………… ‘Ulster Day’, Saturday, 28th September, 1912.
GOD SAVE THE KING
Some signed under duress with employers intimating that failure to sign may have consequences.
A street rhyme of the time went:
Edward Carson, he had a cat, and it sat upon the fender.
Every time he pulled it’s tail, it shouted - “No Surrender”.
Orange Clubs were now being founded throughout Ulster rising to 315 clubs with a membership of 61,454 by May 1913. Their members received drill instructions from ex-soldiers and officers. The RIC kept these drilling classes under ‘careful observation and prepared returns’
The Ulster Unionist Council announced a cmapaign to enslist 100,000 men who had signed the Covenant and were aged between 17 and 65. Meanwhile the military committee marked off the nine counties of Ulster into divisions and districts, each of which were to raise a determined number of regiments or battalions. Apparently few saw the contradiction between the actions of preparation for armed rebellion against the King and the Covenant that declared them to be ‘loyal subjects’.
30: the New York Times comments that if Irish nationalists had the right to leave the British system, the Unionist majority in the North had the right to remain with Great Britain. However, the paper condemned the tactics of the Unionists by saying it was ‘good politics but poor patriotism to disrupt the country by arrousing religious and sectarian passions that have always been the plague of Ireland’
Hamilton Norway took over as head of the Post Office in Ireland. He wrote some years later that on arrival ‘almost the first piece of advice given to me was in no case to engage a parlour maid who was a Roman Catholic, since any talk which touched on politics at the dinner table would be reported to the priests. That this belief was not groundless was demontrated a little later when a heedless letter from a guest, containing some sharp strictures on Nationalist Roman Catholics, and left carelessly by me upon my desk in my my study, was stolen by a cook dismissed for insolence, who quoted some of its phrases in a last interview with my wife, and who did in all probability endeavour to stir up mischief by using some of those subteranean ways which are common enough in Ireland. No mischielf resulted, however, and we were always on good terms with the priests and nuns in our neighbourhood, as well, of course as with our own Church.’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p91
In his memoirs, Norway recalled the Ireland of the time and official views on the state of affairs in the country:
‘Everyone believed that the point was off the Irish pikes and the gunmen had forgotten how to shoot. This was partly true.but it was also true that dangerous men and organisations were stirring in their sleep, while those who should have watched them played golf and dined in peace.’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p92
Within a few days of his arrival, he made formal calls on the British Administration, including Sir James Dougherty, the Under Secretary in Dublin Castle. He expressed no anxiety about the state of the country ‘nor did he indicate any source of difficulty likely to present itself to me. He told me, however, that the term Sinn Fein denoted every shade of Nationalism, from innocent enthuasiasts for Gaelic litterature and Gaelic sports at one end to red-hot Fenians at the other; so that to call a man a Sinn Feiner established nothing about him until one knew to which section of Sinn Fein he belonged’
Norway sumarised Sinn Fein as being ‘innocent enough at the outset, [but] had been adopted by dangerous men as a screen’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p93
Balkans: The Balkan states began to mobilize.
October 1912
Hamilton Norway gives more of an insider’s view to the British administration in Ireland at the time:
‘Lord Aberdeen was Viceroy when I took up duty, a kindly and well meaning man, but dull, and by no means strong enough to deal with the difficult situation which was even then growing up. The Chief Secretary was Mr Birrell, a shrewd literary critic, but a negligent and undiscerning politician, who did not occupy his Lodge in the Phoenix Park, and visited Ireland rarely. The Under Secretary, whose duty it was to know the country accurately, and to probe its movements deeply, was Sir James Dougherty, a man of supine temprament and narrow, if capable ideas, to whom one would not look for quick and resolute action on the sudden appearance of public danger. The Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary was Sir Neville Chamberlain, a distinguished soldier and perhaps alive to the growth of trouble which he did not check. The head of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, an unarmed force, was Sir John Ross of Bladensburg, of whom I think of constant admiration as a fine and resolute man, completely loyal to his subordinates at a time of grave difficulty…all of these with exception of the last, were dominated by the strong conviction held by Mr Birrell, and adopted as a principle of action by the mInsitry, that Ireland must be goverened according to Irish ideas, by which doctrine they nderstoood that all strong action must be foregone, and everything avoided which might concievablt create friction…now the truth about the Irish is that they appreciate strenght, despise weakness and desire to be governed firmly and justly. But this was never known at Westminster….’
The Sinn Fein Rebellion As They Saw It. Mary & Arthur Hamilton Norway. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p91-2
5: Herbert Asquith speaking in Ladybank said ‘The reckless rodomontade at Blenheim [ against Home Rule on July 27th ] in the early summer as developed and amplified in this Ulster campaign, furnishes for the future a complete grammar of anarchy’
Conor O’Clery ‘Ireland in Quotes’ The O’Brien Press Dublin 1999. p29
8: Balkans: The smallest of the Balkan states, Montenegro declared war on the Ottoman Empire
Dockers in Dublin Port went on strike on October 12 1912.
15: Switzerland: With war in the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire wanted no additional enemies in the area and so agreed to sign a peace agreement with Italy where she received Tripoli and the Dodecanese.
18: Balkans: The Balkan allies along with Greece entered the war on the side of Montenegro, precipitating the First Balkan War. The Balkan Alliance won a series of decisive victories over the Turks during the next two months, forcing them to relinquish Albania, Macedonia, and practically all their other holdings in south-east Europe.
November 1912
5: Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson was elected US President, the first Democrat since Grover Cleveland in 1892. Wilson won only 42% of the vote, 27% going to the former President and indpendendet, Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent, President Taft taking 23%.
The Irish Parliamentary Party remained unmoved by the recent suffragette hunger strikes and voted with the Government to defeat the Women’s Suffereage Bill and women’s sufferege amndments to the Home Rule Bill.
By the end of November 1912, it was claimed that in Ulster alone 218,206 men and 228,991 women had signed the covenant. “ But it was no great threat. It committed them, at most, to a state of mind. Anyone who wished to sign it could have done so, in hot blood or in cold, without a qualm”
12: Madrid: Liberal PM Jose Mendez was assasinated and within a few months, the conservatives were back in force.
Switzerland: Chemist Edwin Brandenberger produced the first transparent wrapping paper, cellophane.
On 28th November, the omnious mood increased with Bonar Law suggesting to an audience of Dublin Unionists that the Army would mutiny if they were asked to coerce Ulster.
Liberal MP T.G. Agar-Roberts proposed the controversial issue of partition, arguing that a partition of the four most Protestant counties in Ulster ( Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down ) and these be given special treatment. This was rejected by the Irish Party and in turn by the Liberals and the proposal was defeated. Asquith pushed ahead, maintaining that Ireland was one nation, not two.
Tensions finally reached breaking point on November 13th when while speaking in the House on Home Rule, Asquith was interupted by Sir William Bull, shouting ‘Traitor’ across the floor. When Asquith demanded a formal retraction, Bull refused and left the chamber. An uproar ensued and the Speaker adjourned the house for an hour. As MP’s re-assembled later, the din continued and the Speaker left the chair after 10 minutes. As Ministers left, Churchill waved his handkerchief tauntingly for which he received a leather bound book in the side of the head from an Ulster Unionist, McNeill. Churchill had to be physically restrained from jumping the seats to ‘discuss matters further’ with McNeill. The book was a manual on rules and advice on observing good behaviour in Parliament.
The Home Rule bill passed successfully through the Commons but was rejected by the Lords, therefore preventing its automatic passage into law before 1914.
Carson announced that a provisional government would be formed if Home Rule went ahead.
Sean T.O’Kelly, over 50 years later wrote: “ The IRB…watched developments in Ulster with great interest. Whatever the concern for the power of the Unionists to disrupt the implementation of Home Rule, there were those among us who could not fail to take heart from the spectacle of Irishmen openly preaching insurection against the crown and arming themselves for acts of rebellion. “They are doing our work” it was whispered in the inner-councils of the IRB; if the Orangemen are arming illegally with the connivance of the pro-Union authorities and the Conservtive party, well then they are setting a priceless precedent for others, with other ends in view, to arm as well..”
“The Irish Uprising 1916-1922.” CBS 1966.
Clonmel: James Connelly and James Larkin founded the Irish Labour Party.
Dublin: Sean Mac Diarmada contracts polio leaving him disabled with a bad limp.
December 1912
3: Balkans: An armistice agreement was signed with the rapidly shrinking Ottoman Empire by all the Balkan allies except Greece, which continued military operations against the Turks. Serbia had extended it’s territory to the Adriatic shores, south of the Austrian-Hungarian possesions.
8: Wilhelm II calls military conference at Potsdam (over Haldane's comment) note: Some scholars (i.e., Fisher) see this as the turning point when Germany formulated plans for a war with Britain, but there was no follow-up on this.
President Elect Wilson appointed the Jesuit educated Catholic, Francis Tumulty as his personal secretary. Wilson received a barrage of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic mail on the issue, alleging that Tumulty would hold back correspondence dealing with Protestant affairs while promoting Catholic interests. Despite publicly defending Tumulty, it must have given him some second thoughts on publicly endorsing Irish matters during his administration. Wilson, in spite of his Presbyterian and Scots-Irish background, was clearly unsympathetic towards Ulster Unionists.
A spy scare amongst the Clan na Gael executive resulted when a senior member of the circle died. One of the executive going through a trunk for insurance papers found letters showing that since 1900, the deceased had been in the pay of the British Secret Service and had sent information on Clan activities to a number of British contacts in the US, including the Consul-Gneral in New York, Captain Armstrong. The correspondence showed there was a second agent in Philadelphia, checking on the activitieis of the first and while he was in a failry prominent position, his identity could only be guessed at.
Hits of 1912:
‘Waiting for the Robert E Lee’
‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’
‘When I lost you’
The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 resulted in an increased desire on the part of Serbia to obtain the parts of Austria-Hungary inhabited by Slavic peoples, strengthened Austro-Hungarian suspicion of Serbia, and left Bulgaria and Turkey, both defeated in the wars, with a desire for revenge. Germany, disappointed because Turkey had been deprived of its European territory by the Balkan Wars, increased the size of its army. France responded by increasing peacetime military service from two to three years. Following the example of these nations, all the others of Europe in 1913 and 1914 spent huge sums for military preparedness.