Home Rule Crisis 1911-1914
The period between 1911 and 1914 was a time of enormous change in Ireland and particularly Ulster, characterised by:
- Increasing social unrest and the rise of the Labour movement
- Introduction of the 3rd Home Rule Bill
- Formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Irish Volunteers
- Unionists' signing of the Solemn League and Covenant
- The outbreak of the First World War
These events, which affected the whole of Ireland, were mirrored by events in Ballymena and the surrounding mid Antrim countryside. Key figures in both the Nationalist and Unionist movements lived or visited mid Antrim.