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| 1857, Sept |
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| Irish Temperance League founded in Belfast. Organized by Presbyterian clergy, the Temperance League marked the growing concern of the Protestants over the use of drink. The Irish Catholics also included a strong temperance movement, which focused on Father Matthew, who toured Ireland, England, and the United States, asking Catholics to take the pledge. | 1 |
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| 1858, March 17 |
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| The formation of a secret organization that would be called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in Dublin. The American Irishmen created a counterpart to the IRB in the Fenian Brotherhood (April 1859) and the Clan na Gael (1877), which followed it. | 2 |
| Fenianism represented the revolutionary and international aspects of Irish nationalism in that it organized radical Irishmen in Ireland and abroad. It focused on physical force as a means of demonstrating its power. The changes it demanded included Irish independence from British rule and the three F's of the land problem—free sale, fixed tenure, and fair rent. Fenianism was condemned by Archbishop Cullen because it required a secret oath. Fenians were officially to be denied access to the sacraments until they confessed of their wrongdoing and left the movement. | 3 |
| Agricultural depression, beginning in the 1860s, started to put serious strain on the land system in Ireland. Demands for land reform had declined in the 1850s as agricultural production meant improved earnings. These earnings were curtailed by a series of cold, wet growing seasons followed by a series of droughts in the early 1860s. | 4 |
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| 1864 |
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| Irish National Association was founded. It called for action on disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the land reform, and Catholic education. Cullen supported this association and called upon his clergy to cooperate with it. | 5 |
| Fenian activity increased. In 1864, James Stephens declared 1865 the year of Fenian insurrection. | 6 |
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| 1866, Feb. 17 |
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| Parliament suspended habeas corpus in Ireland. A Fenian council of war decided against an immediate rising, but Fenians continued to be arrested and deported or imprisoned. | 7 |
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| 1869, July 26 |
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| The Irish Church Act disestablished the Protestant Church of Ireland and partially removed its endowment. It also provided funding for both the Presbyterian and Catholic churches. | 8 |
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| 1870 |
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| Isaac Butt launched the Home Rule movement. This movement demanded that Ireland be given the right to govern its own affairs through an Irish Parliament, while remaining part of the British Empire. | 9 |
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| Aug. 1 |
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| The Landlord and Tenant Act, introduced by Gladstone, extended the Ulster Custom throughout Ireland. This custom gave the tenant the right to claim compensation at the end of his tenancy for any improvements he made on property. (The 1881 Land Act set up a court to mediate between landlords and tenants.) Agrarian riots increased. | 10 |
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