Events in the year 1912 in Ireland. Events 8 February – The First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill addressed a pro-Home Rule meeting in Belfast despite Ulster Unionist attempts to prevent him speaking. He shared the platform with John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. 31 March – John Redmond, Eoin MacNeill, Patrick Pearse, Tim Healy and others addressed a monster meeting of 200,000 people in favour of Home Rule at the General Post Office, Dublin. 9 April – 250,000 Orangemen converged on Balmoral Showground in Belfast, declaring that under no circumstances would they accept Home Rule. 11 April – The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom H. H. Asquith introduced the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. 12 April – A convention of Sinn Féin delegates led by Arthur Griffith opposed the Home Rule Bill. 14 April – The , the largest vessel in the world, built in Belfast and making her last call at Queenstown, collided with an iceberg and sank. 22 April – Englishman Denys Corbett Wilson completed the first aeroplane crossing of the Irish Sea, from Goodwick in Wales to Crane near Enniscorthy. 26 April – English-born Vivian Hewitt made an aeroplane crossing of the Irish Sea from Holyhead to the Phoenix Park in Dublin. 30 April – Winston Churchill moved the second reading of the Home Rule Bill at Westminster. 9 May – The second reading of the Home Rule Bill was accepted in the British House of Commons. A Unionist amendment rejecting the Bill was defeated. 10 May – At the Royal Albert Hall in London, Bonar Law spoke of Conservative opposition to the Home Rule Bill. Elsewhere Edward Carson also voiced his opposition. 1 July – A serious outbreak of foot and mouth disease occurred in Counties Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow. July – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom H. H. Asquith travelled to Dublin (the first sitting Prime Minister to do so in over a century; Gladstone had visited Dublin in November 1877 whilst out of office, whilst Arthur Balfour had been Chief Secretary for Ireland) to make a speech, criticising Unionist demands. 17 July - "A hatchet (around which a text reading 'This symbol of the extinction of the Liberal Party for evermore' was wrapped) was thrown [by a Suffragette] at [ Aquith's] moving carriage as it passed over O’Connell