Talk:Larne gun-running

Alternate View
Aughavey 29 June 2005 13:42 (UTC) I have to say that this is a somewhat bias take on events. I will add another view of things.

note the changing of "motor corps of various UVF units". The UVF were quite organised and had motor corps and nursing corps amongst others (see Ulster Volunteer Force for pics of nurses).

I have to protest at the subtle editing of this page by lapsed pacifist to provide a biased viewpoint. The insertion of terms like "the RIC did nothing" and "fundamentalists" and "fervent" have been inserted on purpose when there is firstly no proof that the RIC knew anything about the smuggling of the guns.

I would like evidence that the RIC stood by and did nothing and I would also like evidence that the Kaiser or Germany had anything to do with the smuggling as opposed to a single german arms dealer - note the insertion of the line "The Kaiser of Imperial Germany, who was eager to make trouble for England, approved the sale."

This is the original article i posted:-

The Gunrunners

On Saturday 21 March the news that officers of the British Army at the Curragh camp had mutinied, and refused to participate in a betrayal of Ulster, put paid to the Government’s plans for extensive suppression of the resistance to Home Rule. Directives for military action were withdrawn and tension was defused, if only by Asquith’s abject capitulation. However, the Unionist leaders felt they had learnt that the UVF was not properly prepared to take on the British Army unless it was fully equipped with arms. Plans were made for a large-scale gun-running operation. It would, however, be foolish to imagine that the UVF had been reliant on wooden rifles until the spring of 1914.In many of the rural areas, the periodic threat of Home Rule over the past decades had led to the presence of guns in cupboards or under beds, in houses of Ulster Protestants.

In the Waringstown area, for instance, some farmers had regularly fattened extra pigs to get money for guns. Especially popular was a Webley which had been issued to officers in the boer war. The first semblance of training in the use of guns in the early volunteering days around Lurgan and Portadown was provided under the aegis of sporting gun clubs when, of a Sunday afternoon, townspeople who were unused to guns could obtain training at the hand of farmers who were in the Volunteer movement and were well acquainted with the practicalities of shooting. Some of the models which turned up in the early UVF days were mid-nineteenth-century muzzle rifles with gunpowder and ball and a high degree of inaccuracy. Other antique shotguns would prove equally inaccurate and when modern rifles did begin to arrive a whole new, more accurate, standard of musketry had to be achieved. Small-scale gun-smuggling was already going on before 1914.

Guns came in on fishing boats to ports such as Kilkeel, and were hidden in boxes of herring. Colliers also landed guns, to be entrusted to someone specially delegated for the task on the quayside. Volunteers in the village of Waringstown, Co. Down, received rifles smuggled to the province in these ways, then sent by train to Lurgan; a carriage would be diverted down by Brownlow Terrace from where there was easy access for a local lorry driver who would then deliver the precious cargo around country areas. However, the number of guns getting through was inadequate to the needs of the mass army, especially now that a watch was being kept on key British ports, following the discovery that the gun-running had become a standard practice. So the go-ahead was given to an enterprising and influential figure in the Belfast Volunteer hierarchy, Fred Crawford, to endeavour to buy a very large consignment of rifles on the continent and ship them en masse direct to Ulster, to land at some secret night-time rendezvous.

Crawford, a former artillery officer in the British Army, had been involved in the Volunteer movement since 1911 and had built up contacts with a German, Bruno Spiro, which were to prove invaluable. The so-called business committee of the UVF approved Crawford’s plan to buy 20,000 rifles and two million rounds of ammunition from Spiro in Hamburg, acquire a suitable steamer in a foreign port and bring the weapons back to Ulster, perhaps with a secret mid-voyage transfer to some other vessel. The gun-running was planned secretly and scrupulously. The operation was code named Lion. On the night of 24 April 1914 there was to be a test mobilisation of the UVF under cover of which the Co.Antrim Regiment was to take over the port of Larne, whilst the Clyde Valley docked there and unloaded.

The motor corps of various UVF units would be assembled in Larne and waiting with engines turning, to collect their parcels of guns and deliver them to secret locations in their home area.In Belfast, Volunteers were to endeavour to draw attention away from the Larne operation: they were to march a contingent to the docks where the SS Balmerino would arrive in what would be a decoy run, a great effort was to be made to frustrate the Customs authorities in their attempt to search the vessel, adding to the suspicion that she contained arms for the waiting Belfast Volunteers.

On the night all went according to plan. The UVF took control of Larne under cover of darkness, and column after column of vehicles approached the port, past checkpoint after checkpoint. Men from the local battalions had been placed at key points along the highways to guide drivers unfamiliar with the roads. At certain points there were reserve supplies of petrol and tools for possible breakdowns. It was a cold wet night at Larne and many of the men involved had already done a day’s work but by the time the Clyde Valley had pulled into the harbour, the headlights of 500 motor vehicles were flaring in the Co. Antrim town. Lorry drivers were soon on their way with their clandestine cargo. At Larne two local ships were loaded with guns for Belfast and Donaghadee, and soon the Clyde Valley was heading for Bangor on the Co. Down coast where a further, smaller consignment of guns and ammunition was unloaded. By 7.30, as Bangor came awake the last cars were leaving the pier with their cargo, and at Donaghadee and Belfast the guns had also been quietly slipped ashore. The Clyde Valley operation had been an unqualified success.

The weapons were soon being secreted in stockpiles across Ulster. Stewart-Moore and his Volunteers had spent a disappointingly dull night guarding Stranocum village. They were to prevent police from entering the village, but there was no sight of RIC through the night. At 4.30am tired and sleepy, they were ordered home. The next afternoon, Stewart Moore drove to Stranocum House and found his Uncle James revolver in hand, organising a group of men who were loading a car with bundles of rifles, done up in canvas. They had originally been delivered at 7 a.m. but a disturbing report had come through that there were five policemen fishing on the river nearby with only one fishing rod!. It was decided swiftly that the rifles had better be distributed around the country for safekeeping.Stewart Moore put a bundle of guns under a rug on the floor of his cart, stopped briefly at a neighbour’s for afternoon tea, then returned home, where with stifled excitement, he and his sister hid the rifles after nightfall in an unused loft above the scullery. Shortly afterwards the guns would be handed out to his Volunteers for the first time.

Outside Crossgar, Co. Down, Hugh James Adams and John Martin lay in a ditch along the main road, awaiting the guns from Bangor. When the weapons finally arrived, early in the morning, they were taken to Tobar Mhuire for swift distribution to a variety of locations. Bundles were placed in carts and taken quietly to houses in and around the village, where they were hidden under floorboards until further orders arrived. In Lisburn Hugh Stewart, who had originally been forbidden by his father from joining the UVF, found his nights duties hard going, and as he lay out on Moss Road, on guard, he fell asleep. However, the guns were safely brought in and stored in buildings around the town.Hugh recalled how he had got his old dummy rifle for 1s.6d. and had been proud of it too, but was keen now for one of the real guns and a shinning bayonet.

At Springhill,Co.Derry. the Lenox-Conynghams were instrumental in getting the guns to their area. Just a few days previously Sir Edward Carson had visited them, sitting down to a dinner party around a damask tablecloth portraying the Siege of Derry, with a small wreath of laurels at Sir Edward’s place. Mini Lenox-Conyngham was proud to be at Carson’s side as he walked in the gardens but she records that he told her: I see terrible times ahead–bitter fighting-rivers of blood! Unflinching and defiant in his public utterances, Carson on occasion expressed in private conversation grave doubts about the consequences of his actions. With political passions running high the two opposing paramilitary forces preparing for action, bitter fighting and rivers of blood seemed a likely outcome in Ulster before the year was out. On the Friday of Operation Lion orders came by despatch rider for the Lenox-conyngham to mobilise their men that night. In the dawn of the next day the squadron of cars pulled into the motor-yard with their newly landed rifles. The women of the house had been up all night preparing food and now a hot meal was ready for drivers and their helpers who had motored the fifty miles from Larne.The guns that had been landed were mainly German Mauser and Austrian Mannlicher rifles and the majority went to Belfast, Antrim and Down, with some to Derry and Tyrone.

There were also several thousand Vetterli rifles of Italian make which were distributed in Armagh, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Derry. These Italian guns were to gain a certain unpopularity before long, because they were stamped (annunciata) which was interpreted as meaning blessed by the pope! However with or without a papal blessing, the Volunteers were soon drilling openly with their new guns. Unionist in Britain, particulary the Union Defence League and others promoting the British Covenant, were impressed by the gun-running operation. Lord Roberts, the Ulsterman who had led the retreat from Kabul to Kandahar and had been in command in the Boer War, had refused Carson’s offer to head the UVF only on grounds of age. On hearing of the landings of arms he is reputed to have said to Carson

Magnificent! Magnificent! Nothing could have been better done it was a piece of organisation that any army in Europe might be proud of.

The success of the episode, despite all odds, was seen as a sign of God’s hand guiding the Ulster Protestants. Men such as Crawford. Mastermind behind the gun-running, believed strongly in the rightness of their cause:

I felt my responsibilities very heavily, but I believed that our cause was just and I believed in God Almighty. We were going to defend our faith and liberty.

It was with the sense of achievement that the men of the UVF were to enter the British Army and, eventually, the gun and shell fire of the Somme. They had the verdict of military men that they could compare with any army in Europe in their organisation and strategy, and they had evidence that God was on their side. Again the Ulster loyalist emphasised the righteousness of their cause. Even before the Clyde Valley steamed into Larne, the Northern Whig declared.

There is strong feeling in Belfast to-day, notwithstanding Mr Churchill’s ferocity, Mr Lloyd George’s vulgar bluster, and Mr Devlin’s impotent boasting, that the worst of the battle is over, and that the cause of Ulster has been justified in the eyes of England, of Europe, and of the World


 * Yep, looks like Lapsed Pacifist has been at it again!Jonto 00:04, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It needs to be divided into sections anyway.86.42.201.65 (talk) 22:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing non-enyclopaedic language
This article reads in places like a 'ripping yarn' and not at all like a dispassionate encyclopaedia entry. This is against Wikipedia policy. I am toning this down - e.g. the gratuitous 'wooden rifles' part and the 'tired and sleepy, they...' part.APW (talk) 08:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Repetitious and not enough sources
I have now made some changes to the article, removing most of the 'ripping yarn' elements. It is still not right, however. Wikipedia is not a story book. The article is also repetitious and, most seriously, is very deficient in verified sources. APW (talk) 08:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Wrong reference to 'annunciata'
Italian Vetterli rifles were manufactured at several arms factories including Torre Annunziata near Naples, and marked accordingly. The reference to 'annunciata' appears to be incorrectly spelt. Just google 'vetterli annunziata' to confirm and see pictures of markings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.208.189.8 (talk) 18:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Article Restructuring
I'm going to restructure this article and rewrite it including incline citations to raise its standards. Northern Star (talk) 10:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Heres the link to the current rewrite of the article. Northern Star (talk) 11:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC) article in process of being deleted as no longer needed. Northern Star (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

When the rewrite is done i'm going to blank the entire current page and then place it in. Any objections? The article is lacking in many aspects of Wiki guidelines and sources. Any bits that anyone wants kept in can salvaged from the page history and put them back in as long as they have a verifiable source so that they can't be challenged. Northern Star (talk) 19:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Article has been restructered and properly sourced with verifiable and reliable sources. Yet i do need sources for the last section "Aftermath and consequences" that come from a nationalist point of view so that both sides can be stated to ensure a non-biased POV prevails throughout the article. It is known that nationalists believed that the British authorities and the RIC were complacent in the whole thing however i need sources for these claims. Northern Star (talk) 22:52, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Done. Scolaire (talk) 06:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just the balance i was looking for in the article. Northern Star (talk) 11:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Major Crawford
Might I suggest that in the lead, where you have wikilinked Major Frederick Hugh Crawford, you should remove the Hugh, leaving it as Major Frederick Crawford. If someone did an article on him it would be entitled Major Frederick Crawford; the Hugh could be included in the biography section of the article.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the change you've made to it, though Major Frederick Crawford may be more applicable if you desire. And thanks by the way to you and Scolaire for improving the article evern more. Northern Star (talk) 12:10, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I added the H as without it, the link led to the dab page. I think the H. is OK, but Hugh looked a bit out of place. I think he should have his own article.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I already plan to create an article for him - my sources have details of his military background etc. however i need to find sourced details of his birth etc. before creating it. I also intend to create an article for the SS Clyde Valley which is why i wiki-linked it. It has a very long history of multiple uses and was used right up until the 1980s! Northern Star (talk) 15:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think he would make a good subject for an article. Peter Taylor mentions him in his book Loyalists.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * He does but doesn't mention very much about him, with the only thing of interest from it being that Crawford was named as one of the people who signed the Covenant with their own blood. Northern Star (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I cannot find dates of birth or death for him? Do you know when he died?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:37, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have uploaded an image of a mural which depicts Major Crawford.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately i don't know those details at this moment but i will try to find out. The picture would work in this article too? Northern Star (talk) 18:17, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would be very useful for the article.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I just found out Keith Haines has written a book on Crawford. It's called Fred Crawford: Carson's Gunrunner. I believe it's also available in paperback. If you can locate a copy, you will be able to obtain a lot of biographical informaton on him which can be sourced. I also read that Major Crawford is buried in Belfast City cemetary.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:45, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Must get a copy of it. Rewritting this article has showed me just how meticulous and in a way breath-taking the whole operation was in planning and performance. User:Mabuska (talk) 14:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Though from what i've glanced on the net, any article will have to read at least Colonel Frederick Hugh Crawford CBE rather than plain old major. User:Mabuska (talk) 14:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That is rather lengthy for an article's title. Might I suggest Colonel Frederick H. Crawford for the title? The leading sentence will have to state his full name and titles, but it's a bit cumbersome for the article's name.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:45, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thats what i meant when i said the article will have to read - i didn't make it very clear lol, should of used lede instead of article. Frederick H. Crawford would do on its own, for thats near enough how simple Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellingtons is despite the fact the lede starts with: Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS - imagine trying to remember that at an awards ceremony lol. User:Mabuska (talk) 23:04, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

As an update I've finally after over 2 years got round to creating an article of Frederick H. Crawford. Mabuska (talk) 23:53, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks good!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

'The revitalising of militant separatism'
I took this sentence out this morning because the chronology is wrong. The IRB was 'revitalised' from about 1905-7 by people like Bulmer Hobson and Tom Clarke. Nationalism in general was 'revitalised' in 1913 with the formation of the Irish volunteers, largely through the efforts of Hobson and the IRB, and as a direct response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers. All of this therefore preceded the Larne gun-running. Perhaps it could be phrased something like this: Scolaire (talk) 14:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It also increased Irish nationalist suspicions, already aroused by the Curragh Incident of the previous month, that the authorities were acquiescent towards unionist militants in Ulster. The nationalist Irish Volunteers (IV) had been formed in late 1913, strongly influenced by a renascent Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), as a response to the formation of the UVF.  In the month after Larne, recruitment to the IV soared. The IV themselves imported a boat-load of arms...
 * I think the issue swings more on the historical pov of which had the biggest impact on the IRBs 'revitalisation'. Maybe the author of the source i used believes the Larne gun-running may have been a bigger revitalising factor than Hobson and Clarke. I've removed it as there is an issue with it which might just swing on that point.
 * User:Mabuska (talk) 22:59, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's not forget that Carson formed a "Provisional Government" in 1912. Lots of detail is conveniently forgotten by unionists and nationalists. And regarding the Howth gun-running — "The contrast between the inactivity of the police and military in Larne and the heavy-handed response in Dublin further convinced nationalists of official bias in favour of the UVF." — this is POV as there was a whale of a difference between a removal of arms at night using cars and marching into Dublin in broad daylight. During the landings elsewhere, e.g. at Donaghadee, detachments of RIC were faced off by men with clubs and even briefly "detained".86.42.197.226 (talk) 07:45, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We need sources for such information. The statement in the article your referring to is the nationalist viewpoint of the whole episode as it clearly states. Mabuska (talk) 10:22, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Overall numbers
ATQ Stewart's 1960s book The Ulster Crisis has been reprinted several times and reveals a grand total of just under 40,000 rifles by mid-1914. He was the first historian to have access to the papers of Wilfrid Spender. Given that the British army at the time had six divisions (i.e. 60,000 effectives), and even if the UV were a home guard, the numbers were compelling.86.42.197.142 (talk) 06:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I need to include a footnote into the article to describe the different number of weapons given by various sources. Mabuska (talk) 11:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Mauser" rifles
Few if any M1898 Mauser rifles were imported by the UVF. At the time, the M1898 Mauser was the first-line German military rifle and was not available as surplus. The ex-German military rifles were M1888 "Commission" rifles which were based on a Mannlicher bolt design, not a Mauser design.

The M1904 Mannlichers manufactured at Steyr in Austria were a variant of the M1888 Commission design, fitted with a conventional wooden handguard rather than the steel barrel jacket used on the M1888. Steyr manufactured these rifles for sales to several small European nations, the M1904 was basically identical to the Romanian M1892 and M1893 rifles.

Both the M1888 and M1904 chambered the 7.92mmx57 cartridge, the same on used in the German M1898 Mauser. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.21.137 (talk) 00:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

There are pages on Steyr Mannlicher, Gewehr 1888 for the prototype, and the round was a roundheaded 8×57mm IS known as the 8×57mm I.86.42.221.59 (talk) 21:17, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

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