1900-1909

January 30th, 1900: The Irish Nationalist Party reunites a decade after it split when Charles Stewart Parnell was rejected as party leader after his highly publicised affair with Mrs Katharine O'Shea. John Redmond is elected chairman on February 6th.

April 3rd, 1900: An 83-year-old Queen Victoria arrives at Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) harbour for a three-week visit (see main picture) during which she issues orders for a new regiment, the Irish Guards. When she dies less than a year later, Lord Rosebery says of her visit: "Even in her feeble old age she was prepared to undergo that great trial to her health and to her strength to show that there was no part of her kingdom for which she did not feel an equal sympathy." A vote of condolence at Dublin Corporation is eventually passed by 30 votes to 22.

December 14th, 1900: Limerick City Council offers the freedom of the city to ex-President Kruger of the Transvaal and to Maud Gonne.

June 11th, 1903: The Independent Orange Order is founded in Belfast by T.H. Sloan. Two years later it issues the Maheramore Manifesto calling for the tolerance of all Irishmen towards those who worship "at other shrines".

July 21st, 1903: King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra arrive on a twoweek official visit. A Dublin Corporation meeting on July 3rd to consider an address to the King dissolved into protest led by Maud Gonne MacBride (right). There would be two more state visits before the King's sudden death in 1910.

August 14th, 1903: Wyndham's Land Act follows the recommendations of the Land Conference report by subsidising tenants to buy out their landlords at £12 an acre. A year later it is estimated that "agreements to purchase to the amount of twelve millions sterling have been entered into". By 1908 an estimated seven million acres had been sold to tenants.

January 1904: Limerick anti-Jewish agitation flares after a sermon by Redemptorist priest Father John Creagh. Reports of Jews being "insulted and assaulted" appear in The Irish Times.

December 2nd, 1904: Unionists resolve to resist Lord Dunraven's proposed scheme for devolution by forming a United Unionist Council at a conference in Belfast.

May 5th, 1906: Arthur Griffith publishes and edits the first issue of Sinn Fein.

April 21st, 1907: The Sinn Fein League is formed from the Dungannon clubs and Cumann na nGaedheal. The following year it wins 15 seats in the Dublin municipal election in its first significant electoral victory.

May 6th, 1907: James Larkin assumes leadership of the dock strike (above) at Belfast Steamship Company which leads to lock-out. When non-union members are employed to load the cargo steamer, The Irish Times reports that strikers, "seized large pieces of coal and made an onslaught on the men when they were working in the holds".

July 24th, 1907: When Royal Irish Constabulary members in Belfast strike over pay and conditions they are replaced by 7,000 troops sent from Dublin to assume their duties. Rioting by supporters of the Belfast policemen leads to two deaths and ends when the southern troops are withdrawn in August after the intervention of James Larkin.

November 11th, 1908: Irish Women's Franchise League is founded by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins.

January 1st, 1909: The first old-age pension of two to five shillings a week paid to people over 70. By 1911 the Irish pay-out alone is to cost the exchequer £2,400,000

November 30th, 1909: Lloyd George's People's Budget is rejected by the House of Lords, the first money bill to be rejected by Lords in 200 years. The Lords' loss of power to veto subsequent bills comes as good news to the Irish Nationalist Party because a third Home Rule Bill looked likely now that the Liberals are back in power and dependent on their support.