Events from the year 1917 in Ireland. Events 25 January – armed merchantman sunk by mines off Lough Swilly; 354 killed of 475 aboard. 3 February – Count George Noble Plunkett, father of Joseph Mary Plunkett, wins Roscommon North on an abstentionist Sinn Féin platform. 7 February – Atlantic liner sunk by Imperial German Navy U-boat southwest of Fastnet Rock; 41 killed. 25 February – sunk by northwest of Fastnet Rock; twelve killed. 7 March – David Lloyd George announces that Britain is ready to confer self-government to the parts of Ireland that want it. The north-eastern part will not be "coerced". 12 March – in the British House of Commons, J. P. Farrell proposes that Ireland be excluded from the operation of the National Services Act. 17 March – Booth Line armed merchant liner SS Antony inward bound from South America torpedoed and sunk by west of Coningbeg lightship; 55 killed. 20 March – a motion to reduce the salary of the British prime minister by £100 is introduced in the British House of Commons as a protest against the refusal to publish the proceedings of the 1916 Rising courts martial. 10 May – Sinn Féin candidate Joseph McGuinness wins a by-election in South Longford against the Irish Parliamentary Party's candidate McKenna. It is a political disaster for John Redmond and his Party. 16 May – British prime minister, David Lloyd George, announces that he wants immediate Home Rule for the 26 counties. Six north-eastern counties are to be excluded for a period of five years. 7–14 June – at the Battle of Messines on the Western Front (World War I), 36th (Ulster) Division and 16th (Irish) Division both fight within IX Corps of the British Army. 16 June – oiler Batoum sunk by U-boat south of Fastnet Rock. 18 June – prisoners taken during the Easter Rising, released under an amnesty, arrive at Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) by mailboat. 10 July – Éamon de Valera of Sinn Féin beats Patrick Lynch, at this time an Irish Parliamentary Party Home Rule candidate, in the East Clare by-election caused by the death on active service of Willie Redmond. One Dublin Castle official calls it 'the most important election that has ever taken place, or ever will, in Irish history.' 16 July – the Round Room in the Mansion House, Dublin, is filled to capacity as the leaders of Sinn Féin demand