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| August 4, 1914 | Britain declares war on Germany. |
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| September 1914 | Home Rule Act was finally
placed on the statute book. However the British government then
announced that its introduction would be suspended for the duration
of the War. The leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Redmond, in a speech at Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, called on the Irish Volunteers to serve with the British Army in the present war with Germany. His appeal led to a split in the Irish Volunteers: those who supported Redmond become known as the National Volunteers, whilst those who opposed any involvement in the war retained the name the Irish Volunteers |
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| 1915 | The Irish Republican
Brotherhood (IRB) agreed to set up a military council and, to take
advantage of Britain’s involvement in the war (World War I), began
preparations for a new armed uprising in Ireland. They immediately
identified the Irish Volunteers, now firmly under the leadership of
Eoin MacNeill, as a source of recruits for their cause. Through the Gaelic League, MacNeill met members of Sinn Féin. MacNeill became chairman of the council that formed the Irish Volunteers in 1913; he later became its chief of staff. He was vehemently opposed to the idea of an armed rebellion, except in resisting any British suppression of the Volunteers, seeing little hope of success in open battle against the empire. |
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| July 10, 1915 | My Grandfather, Henry J. Doyle from Kilkeel boarded the SS Tuscania in Glasgow for the nine day crossing to New York arriving at Ellis Island on July 19, 1915. Henry J. travelled as a steerage passenger and gave his final destination as Butte City, Montana. |
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| April 24, 1916 |
The Irish Republican Brotherhood went ahead with its plans for armed rebellion with the co-operation of James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army. Pádraig Pearse and some other Volunteer members also supported this move. Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916, was the day the rising was to be staged. When MacNeill learned about the plans the previous Thursday, and when he was informed that German arms were about to land in Ireland, he was reluctantly persuaded to agree, believing British action was now imminent.
Pádraig Pearse stood on the steps of the General Post Office in Dublin and declared Ireland a Republic. |
Patrick Henry Pearse (Pádraig Pearse or Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais) 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was a teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist. He was declared "President of the Provisional Government" of the Irish Republic in one of the bulletins issued by the Rising's leaders, a status that was however disputed by others associated with the rebellion both then and subsequently. |
| July 1916 | In the Western Front in France at the beginning of July 1916 the British army launched a new military offensive, the "Battle of the Somme". Amongst those regiments who suffered huge numbers of casualties was the 36th (Ulster Division), of which many had been recruited amongst the Protestant community in Ulster. |
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| July 1916 | Thousands came out to listen to Jim Larkin and undoubtedly Harry Joe and his co-workers would have been among the crowd. Larkin, who was reared by his grandparents in Newry, Co. Down may have perhaps recognized the Mourne dialect as he mingled among the crowd. |
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| October 21, 1916 | Harry Joe's mother Ann (nee Quinn) passed away and was buried in the family plot in Massforth graveyard, Kilkeel. | |
| June 8, 1917 Granite Mountain Fire |
On the night of June 8th,
1917, a group of men descended to the 2400 level of the Granite
Mountain mine to inspect an electrical cable that had fallen loose
while being trung by a crew on an earlier shift. When the cable
fell, the workers from the earlier shift decided to leave it until
the next day. The protective sheathing frayed as it fell against
rocks and timbers. When Ernest Sullau, the assistant foreman,
inspected the cable, he accidentally touched his hand-held carbide
lamp to uncovered paraffin paper wrapping, and the cable caught
fire. Sullau literally lit the fuse that would ignite the powder
keg.
Butte shut down in mourning as families buried their dead. The giant amusement park east of town, Columbia Gardens, closed out of respect. Ball games were canceled. The city's largest department store, Hennessy's, invited all widows of the disaster to come in if they needed clothes to wear for funerals. |
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| July 18, 1917 | Frank Little, an organizer for the I.W.W., arrived in Butte. “The Wobblies” had set its sights on bringing Butte’s miners into the “One Big Union.” |
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| October 1917 | Since the ‘Easter Rising’ Sinn Féin (SF) had increasingly become an umbrella organization for a variety of groups. This ranged from those involved in the 1916 insurrection and who continued to support its objectives to those members who still remained committed to SF’s original aims. This arrangement was then formalized at a SF convention in October 1917 when delegates agreed to accept a motion whereby it would commit itself to securing recognition of Ireland as an independent Republic, whilst allowing the Irish people to decide on their own form of government through a referendum. | |
| June 5 to December 28, 1917 | The Metal Mine Workers
Union initially formed to protest the draft for World War I and the
rustling card system on June 5th. After the Granite Mountain disaster, the new union forms in earnest and a strike is called on the 11th. Smelter workers return to work and mining resumes on September 16th. By December 28th, the MMWU quits the strike. |
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| February 5, 1918 | A German U-boat sent the SS Tuscania to the bottom of the North Channel Sea. On its final voyage, the passengers aboard this vessel, consisted of a large contingent of American Army soldiers. This was a story that shocked America, for it was the first time since the American Civil War, that Americans had felt the loss of mass casualties on such a large scale. | |
| 1918 | In the wake of opposition from SF, the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and the Catholic Church the British government decided to abandon plans to introduce conscription in Ireland. | |
| Many of the leading figures in SF, including de Valera were interned after the British authorities alleged that they have been involved in a plot with Germany. | ||
| March 17, 1918 | The Mayor of Butte
refused a permit for the St. Patrick's Day parade and issued an order
“forbidding the
parade, and further, to make this order permanent during the period
of the present war, with the exception of strictly patriotic parades
and demonstrations.” Mayor Maloney also ordered the chief
of police to use whatever force necessary to make his order
effective. At 4 o’clock , the parade began and attracted thousands
of spectators. Immediately, police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and
federal troops began to arrest the marchers. Riots erupted
throughout the neighborhood. The crowd was moved-on by soldiers
carrying loaded rifles fixed with bayonets. At one point a mob burst
out of a saloon and attacked a soldier. When the crowd surged around
him he fired a shot into the air and began scattering them with his
bayonet. Martial law prevailed until the saloons were closed and the
streets cleared. 54 men were arrested for “plotting against the U.S. Government.” I.W.W cards were found on five of the men arrested. |
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| September 12, 1918 | Harry Joe completed a Draft Card as part of the "Third Registration". This was for men aged eighteen to twenty-one and thirty-one to forty-five (men born between 11 Sept 1872 and 12 Sept 1900). | |
| September 13, 1918 | A crackdown by local authorities and federal troops prevents a call for a general strike to protest the conviction of I.W.W. leaders. Omar Bradley leads federal troops to shut down The Daily Bulletin and I.W.W. members in Butte and Anaconda are arrested, including William F. Dunne, editor of The Daily Bulletin. |
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| November 11, 1918 | World War I ceasefire declared. | |
| January 21, 1919 |
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Twenty-eight of the elected Sinn Fein members convened as Dail
Eireann for the first time. Thirty six were in prison, four were out
of the country and five were otherwise unable to attend. The
Unionists and the Irish Parliamentary Party ignored the summons to
the Dail. This body subsequently issued a Declaration of
Independence and elected Cathal Brugha as its acting president
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| January 1919 | Two policemen were killed by members of the Irish Volunteers, acting on their own initiative, near Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary. This event was seen as marking the beginning of what was to become known as the ‘Anglo-Irish War’ or the ‘War of Independence’. The conflict quickly escalated as the Irish Volunteers, now reorganised as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempted to force the British authorities out of Ireland by means of armed resistance. | |
| February 6 to 17, 1919 | Strike is called over wage cuts of $1 a day in copper slump after World War I. Governor breaks strike by calling in three companies of the 44th U.S. Infantry. The soldiers bayonet nine strikers on February 10th. | |
| September, 1919 | Michael Collins established a small group of elite I.R.A. men later known as the "Squad". This group whose first leader was Mick McDonnell, included Paddy Daly, Tom Kehoe, Bill Stapleton, Jimmy Conroy, Frank Bolster, Paddy Griffin, Ben Byrne, Johnny Dunne, Jimmy Slattery, Mick Kennedy, Eddie Byrne, Vinny Byrne, Mick Kelly and Pat McCrea. They reported directly to Collins and were ordered not to discuss their movements or actions with any other individual. They were paid £4.50 per week and their usual day-place of assembly was a builder's yard near Dublin Castle. At night-time they also remained in groups in individual houses. In this manner Collins could always call on members of the Squad for any emergency. | |
| Winter 1918 - Spring 1919 (date unknown) | Harry Joe leaves Montana sailing home on a troop ship from the port of San Francisco. | |
| December 30, 1919 | Henry Joseph Doyle married a local farmer’s daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Rogers, from the Old Town, Moneydarraghmore. | |
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