Larne Gun Running occurred in 1914 when loyalists in Ulster, Ireland, who were opposed to Home Rule in Ireland imported guns and ammunition from Germany in order to prepare for armed resistance against it.
In March 1914, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Herbert Asquith re-introduced the Third Home Rule Bill for Ireland into the British House of Commons. This alarmed members of the Ulster Unionist Party because they knew the House of Lords could no longer save them from Home Rule because of the recent adoption of the 1911 Parliament Act. By April 1914, the Unionists, lead by Edward Carson and James Craig, were desperate. They approached Major Fred Crawford, a well-known smuggler, to import guns and ammunition from Imperial Germany into Ulster for their Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to show their determination to oppose Home Rule. Crawford hatched “Operation Lion”, hiring two ships, the Fanny and the Clyde Valley to transport arms from Hamburg to the North. The main operation took place on the 24 April 1914, when the two ships landed 20,000 rifles (Mannlicher and Mauser) and four million rounds of ammunition in Larne.[1] Secondary shipments were landed later at Bangor and Donaghadee. No attempts were made by the Royal Irish Constabulary or the British Army to prevent the landing or to seize the arms. (...)

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See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larne_gun-running
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banna_Strand

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