Larne gun-running
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The Larne gun-running was a major gun smuggling operation organised in April 1914 in Ireland by Major Frederick H. Crawford and Captain Wilfrid Spender for the Ulster Unionist Council to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force. The operation involved the smuggling of almost 25,000 rifles and between 3 and 5 million rounds of ammunition from the German Empire, with the shipments landing in Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor in the early hours between Friday 24 and Saturday 25 April 1914. The Larne gun-running may have been the first time in history that motor-vehicles were used "on a large scale for a military-purpose, and with striking success".
A 100th anniversary flag commemorating the gun running flying in Glenarm.
Major Crawford and arms dealer Benny Spiro, March 1914. The man on the far right of the back row is Richard Toomath, of John Milligan & Co. Coal Merchants. The firm was Crawford's link to the Clydesdale Steamship Company.
Larne harbour present day
Mural in Island Street, East Belfast, 2001, depicting two of those involved in the Larne gun-running; Captain Craig (far-left) and Major Crawford (second from left)
Sir William James Bull, 1st Baronet, was an English solicitor and Conservative Party politician.
Officers of the C Company of Bushmen (West London Volunteers) 1915. Sir William Bull is in the centre.