SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - 20th Century Irish History

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                                               Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland

Chronology 1900-1916
1903 Wyndham Land Purchases Act introduced.
1905 Sinn Féin founded in Dublin.
1906 Liberals win General Election with majority and fail to offer Home Rule to Irish Party.
1909 Land Purchase Act.
1910 Two General Elections in which Conservatives and Liberals almost equal with Irish Party holding balance.
1911 Parliament Act deprives House of Lords of ultimate veto.
1912 Third Home Rule Bill. Solemn League and Covenant in Ulster.
1913 January Ulster Volunteer Force founded. November Irish Citizen Army and Irish National Volunteers founded.
1914 Curragh 'mutiny'. Larne gun-running. Howth gun-running. Outbreak of First World War. September: Home Rule Act on Statue Book. Implementation of Home Rule postponed because of outbreak of World War I. IRB plans Rising.
1916 Easter Dublin Rising. The leaders are executed in May and public opinion swings towards supporting independence.
Helena Maloney (1884-1967)
Charlotte Despard (1844-1939)
Thomas James Clarke (1857-1916)
Roger Casement (1864-1916)     Roger Casement's Diaries
William O'Brien (1852-1928)
Maud Gonne(1865-1953)
The 1916 Proclaimation
A copy of the 1916 Proclaimation which Padraig Pearse read on the steps of the G.P.O on Easter Monday, 1916 with a midi file of the Irish National Anthem.
Joseph Plunkett (1887-1916)
Michael O'Hanrahan (1877-1916)
Thomas McDonagh (1878-1916)
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (1878-1916)
James Connolly (1868-1916)
20th Century Irish Historical Texts
The CELT Project at UCC includes the full text of James Connolly's Labour in Irish History (1912); Michael Collins' The Path to Freedom (1922) and The Dáil Treaty Debates 1921-1922.
A Smaller Social History of Ireland By P.W. Joyce (1908) Historian
Padraig Pearse (1879-1916)
Eamonn Ceannt (1881-1916)
Constance Markievicz (1868-1927)
Sean Milroy (c.1916)

1917-1923
1918 All Ireland election. Sinn Féin win majority and decide to form their own Parliament in Ireland.
1919 First Dáil meets in the Mansion House, Dublin. Black 'n Tans (demobed British soldiers formed into a auxiliary and regular army) are deployed in Ireland.
1919-21 Dan Breen starts War of Independence at Soloheadbeg. Dáil Eireann meets in Dublin. Michael Collins prominent in War of Independence.
1920 Black and Tans arrive from England. Auxiliaries arrive. Kevin Barry hanged. 'Bloody Sunday' in Croagh Park. Kilmichael Ambush. Burning of Cork by Auxiliaries.
1921 Burning of Dublin Custom House. English King opens Northern Ireland Parliament in Belfast; Sir James Craig appointed Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Truce & Anglo-Irish Treaty. Irish Free State and Northern Ireland State are created.
1922 Four Courts occupied by anti-Treaty IRA. General Election in Ireland gives pro-Treaty majority. Four Courts attacked by Free State troops. Civil War starts. Deaths of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. William Cosgrave, President of Executive Council. Executions of anti-Treaty IRA by Free State in Dublin - total executions by Free State to May 1923 was 77.
1923 End of the Civil War.

Tadgh Barry (c.1917)
Sidney Gifford Czira (1889-1974)
George Noble Plunkett (1851-1948)
The Irish Election of 1918
Robert Erskine Childers (1870-1922)
Arthur Griffith (1872-1922)
Mary McSwiney (1872-1942)
John Joseph O'Kelly (1872-1957)
James White (1874-1940)
James Larkin (1876-1947)
Hanna Sheehy-Skefington (1877-1946)
Lily O'Brennan (1878-1948)
Margaret Cousins (1878-1954)
Terence McSwiney (1879-1920)
Eamonn de Valera (1881-1975)
Edmund Darrell Figgis (1882-1925)
Sean T. O'Ceallaigh (1882-1966)
Piaras Béaslaí (1883-1942)
Thomas Ashe (1885-1917)
Michael Collins (1890-1922)
Margaret Buckley (1885-1962)
Grace Gifford Plunkett (1890-1967)
Liam Mellows (1890-1922)
Linda Kearns MacWhinney (1889-1951)
Margaret Skinnider (1893-1971)

1923-1939
1926 Eamon De Valera founds Fianna Fail.
1927 General Election in Ireland. Killing of Kevin O'Higgins. De Valera and Fianna Fáil enter Dail without taking oath to the King of England.
1932 Eamon De Valera elected Taoiseach of Ireland for the Fianna Fáil Party.
1937 The Irish Constitution is put into effect.
1938 Agreement with Britain ends economic war. Britain gives up military and naval rights to 'Treaty' ports.
1939 IRA bombing campaign in Britain. Outbreak of Second World War. Éire neutral. IRA raid on Magazine Fort, Phoenix Park, Dublin.
Liam O'Briain (1888-1974)
Ernest Blythe (1889-1975)
Aodh de Blacam (1890-1951)
Charles MacGuinness (1893-1961)
Frank Gallagher (1893-1962)
Desmond Ryan (1893-1964)
Peadar O'Donnell (1893-1987)
Eithne O'Donnell (1897-1987)
Nora Connolly O'Brien (1893-1981)
Maire Comerford (1893-1982)
Dan Breen (1894-1969)

1939-1946
Michael P. O'Connor (1896-1967)
Tom Barry (1898-1980)
George Gilmore (1898-1985)
Dorothy MacArdle (1899-1958)
Sean McEntee (1899-1984)
Frank Ryan (1902-1944)
Sean MacBride (1904-1988)
Terry Ward (1910-1971)
Irish Aspects of the Spanish Civil War
Graduate essay By Doiminic Bell (1998).
Michael O'Riordan (1917-2006)
The 1937 Constitution with amendments up to 1996.
Liam Brady (born 1918)
Joe Collins (c. 1940)
Brendan Behan (1923-1964)

1947-2000
1949 Declaration of the Republic of Ireland.
1956-62 IRA 'Border' campaign in Northern Ireland.
1965 O'Neill-Lemass Talks.
1967 Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association founded.
1968 British troops deployed in Northern Ireland. First Civil Rights Marches. Derry Civil rights March banned on October 5th by William Craig, Minister of Home Affairs. March disrupted and stopped by 'B' Specials of RUC.
1969 People's Democracy Belfast to Derry March. Marchers attacked at Burntollet bridge on January 4th. O'Neill resigns and Chichester Clark becomes Prime Minister. 'B' Specials riot in Derry and Belfast. August 14th British troops sent to Derry. Unionist riots in Belfast protesting against Hunt Commission's report on RUC.
1970 Dublin Arms Trial (Haughey, Blaney, Boland acquitted).
1971 First British solider killed by IRA in Belfast. Chichester Clark resigns and Faulkner becomes Prime Minister. Faulkner gets British Government's agreement to internment: 342 arrested. By December total numbers interned was 1576.
1972 14 unarmed civilians are shot dead by the British Army while on an anti-internment march on January 30th in Derry which became known as Bloody Sunday. Direct Rule from Westminster imposed and Stormont suspended.
1973 Sunningdale Agreement. Power sharing Assembly established.
1974 Ulster Workers' Strike brings down Faulkner and Assembly. Direct rule re-imposed. 1971 Provisional IRA begins campaign. Internment without trial re-introduced in Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland join European Community.
1980-81 Republican Hunger Strikes in Long Kesh Prison. Ten hunger strikers die.
1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement signed.
1994 Peace Declaration. IRA ceasefire August 31st, 1994.
Ulster paramilitaries declare ceasefire October, 1994.
1996 IRA cesefire recinded.
1997 IRA declares Ceasefire on July 21st.
1998 Belfast Agreement signed on April 10th. Amendments to Articles 2, 3 and 29 of the Irish Constitution passed by Referendum.
2000 Leglislative Assembly formed at Stormont to govern Northern Ireland with all-party support.

Cathal Goulding (1927-1998)
Sean MacStiofáin (1930-2001)
Margaretta D'Arcy (born 1934)
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (born 1935)
Richard McIlkenny (born 1935)
Seamus Ó Tuathail (born 1939)
Bobby Devlin (born 1941)
Michael Farrell (born 1944)
Niall O'Brien (born 1946)
Bernadette Devlin McAlisky (born 1947)
Seamus Keenan (born 1947)
Gerry Adams (born 1948)
Desmond O'Hagan (born 1948)
Raymond McLaughlin (1948-1985)
Áine & Eibhlín Nic Giolla Easpaig (born 1952 and 1949)
Bobby Sands (1954-1981)
Joe O'Connell (born 1951)
Delours Price (born 1951)
Osgur Breathnach (born 1951)
Brendan McCaffrey (born 1951)
Hugh Feeney (born 1952)
Mary Reid (1953-2003)
Danny Morrison (born 1953)
Dessie Ellis (born 1953)
Gerry Conlon (born 1955)
Noel Gibson (born 1955)
Nicky Kohoe (born 1955)
Gerry Kelly (born 1955)
Felim O'Hagan (born 1955)
Joe Doherty (born 1955)
Laurence McKeown (born 1957)
Gerry McGeough (born 1958)
Martina Shanahan (born 1963)
Republican Women Prisoners, Maghaberry Gaol, 1992

Anti-Revisionism Essay by Peter Beresford Ellis
This C. Desmond Greaves Memorial Lecture was delivered at the Conway hall, London, on October 31st, 1989.

Clogher Historical Society
Local history enthusiasts and genealogists in the diocese of Clogher.

CELT - Corpus of Electronic Texts
The CELT Corpus of Electronic Texts is an excellent site, that contains a vast number of Irish cultural, historical, and literary texts (in Irish, Latin, Hiberno-Norman French, and English).

Anglo-Irish Agreement 1985

Key Documents in relation to Anglo-Irish relations and the Northern Ireland Peace Process, including:
Patten Report on Policing; The Mitchell Report 1996; Bloody Sunday Report, June 1997; The Good Friday Agreement 1998; British-Irish Agreement (Amendment) Act, 2002; Joint Declaration 2003 and The St. Andrew's Agreeement 2006.