1866:

• Born on December 21st in Tongham, near Aldershot Military Camp, Surrey, England, to TG, an army officer, and Edith Frith Gonne [née Cooke].

1868:

• Gonne family relocates to Ireland as TG posted to Curragh Military Camp to quell Fenian uprising. 

• Kathleen Gonne born at The Curragh Camp.

1869:

• Gonne family moves to Donnybrook, Dublin.

1871:

• Mother dies giving birth to daughter, Margaret Rose Gonne, who dies shortly after. 

• MG and KG placed in care of a governess.

1872: 

• MG and KG, with nanny Mary Ann Meredith (Bowie) move to Howth, ten miles north of Dublin.

1874:

• MG, KG, nurse and governess sent to live with London relatives.

1876:

• TG appointed military attaché to the Austrian court. 

• MG, KG, nurse and governess move to the South of France.

1885:

• TG, now Colonel Gonne, appointed Assistant Adjutant General in Dublin

• Moves to Dublin to act as hostess to her father

• Presented to the Viceroy at Dublin Castle???xxx

1886:

• December: TG dies of typhus. MG learns of his mistress, Margaret ‘Wilson’ and child Eileen Wilson (EW).

• MG & KG sent to live with their Uncle Willian in London. 

• MW seeks help from them. MG provides.

1887:

• Falls ill with TB.

• Recovers in Royat, Auvergne, meets LM. They agree to a political alliance and begin an affair.

• Travels to Constantinople, turns 21, attaining her majority and her fortune.

1888:

• Adventures to St Petersburg for the Boulangists. WT Stead calls her the most beautiful and fills her in on social causes, including women and Ireland. 

• Begins her work for Ireland. Meets Michael Davitt at Westminster, who is suspicious, and  Timothy Harrington, who sees her propaganda potential. 

• Is denied membership to Celtic Literary Society, National League and Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin because she is female.

• Meets John and Ellen O’Leary in Dublin. Recalls WBY reading poems there and carrying her books home.

• Comes out as Irish - Irelander In Dublin with Unionist Jamesons. Contributes to Parnell’s fund and sings Irish songs in a benefit concert for Royal Dublin Hospital.

• Boulangist rally in Nevers. 

1889:

• Election. Boulanger fails to make expected coup.

• Goes to Yeats family home in Bedford Park.

• Ellen O’Leary dies

• LM disappointed by collapse of Boulangist movement

• Visits northwest, witnesses wholesale evictions in Donegal, possibly pregnant.

1890:

• Works with evicted tenants in Donegal.

• Makes first political speech in Barrow-in-Furness for a Liberal candidate. 

• Gives birth to son by to LM, Georges Silvère (GG).

1891:

• Works for evicted family in Donegal. Witnesses release of political prisoners.

• GG dies of meningitis.

• Travels to Dublin on boat that carries Parnell's coffin.

• Takes comfort in WBY’s spiritual philosophy and explores possibility of reincarnation.

• WBY’s first marriage proposal. MG refuses. 

• WBY initiates MG into the Golden Dawn.

• WBY alongside Æ instructs MG in reincarnation rituals.

1892:

• Lectures on the horrors of the Irish Famine and tenant evictions in France and Luxembourg. WBY dubs her ‘the new Speranza’.

• Helps form Amnesty Association of Great Britain.

• Writes first articles.

• WYB and others found National Literary Societies in London and Dublin. MG joins.

1893:

• Visits prisoners in Portland Jail.

• Attempts reincarnation of son in ritual inspired by Yeats and Æ.

• Cumann na Gael (The Gaelic League) established by Douglas Hyde.

1894:

• WBY in Paris with MG for Axel play.

• Has daughter by Millevoye, Iseult Lucille Germaine (IG).

1895:

• Returns to work, most notably for the Amnesty Association and prisoner.

• LM becomes editor of La Patrie, a regular outlet for Gonne.

1896

• Contributes personal funds to Arthur Griffith’s newspaper the United Irishman.

• MG and WBY explore ‘Celtic mysticism’ and work on ‘Castle of Heroes’.

1897:

• Inspired by the journal Shan Van Vocht,she founds Irish radical nationalist publication L’Irlande Libre, to be distributed in France and Europe.

• MG and WBY collaborate with other Dublin nationalists on Wolfe Tone Centenary celebration of 1798 Rising.

• Gives speech at a socialist open-air public meeting organised by James Connolly (JC).

• She and JC organise a demonstration opposing Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Dublin with a mock-funeral for the British empire, throwing its coffin into the Liffey.

• Her first USA tour, fundraising for Amnesty Association and Wolfe Tone Centenary celebrations of 1898 the following year.

1898:

• MG and WBY collaborate on centenary commemorations.

• Visits famine-ridden Belmullet Co Mayo, rallies tenants and convinces Board of Guardians to meet demands for higher pay.

• MG and James Connolly write The Rights of Life and the Rights of Property.

• Oversees 1898 articles in L’Ireland Libre.

• WBY and MG form a ‘mystical marriage’.

• Tells WBY about her affair with LM with a view to marriage. WBY retreats.

1899:

• WBY proposes to MG in Paris and is refused.

• Attends eviction meetings in Mayo and advocates for political prisoners.

• Funds Arthur Griffith and Willie Rooney to publish a weekly nationalist newspaper, The United Irishman. 

• MG and Arthur Griffith found Transvaal Committee to support the Dutch farmers resisting English Empire building in the Boer War.

• Protests presentation of honorary degree to the Colonial Secretary. Charges through Beresford Place in a carriage with a Transvaal flag and breaks arm when thrown.

• Protests TCD conferring honorary degree on British colonial secretary.

1900:

• Second USA tour, on behalf of Boers and funds for United Irishman

• Protests ‘The Famine Queen’ Victoria’s visit  to Dublin to recruit Irish soldiers for the Boer War.

• Organises a ‘Patriotic Children’s treat’ for nationalist children to counter the ‘Royal Treat’ organised for loyalist children.

• MG and other women from children’s treat committee found Inghinidhe na hEireann (Daughters of Ireland), Ireland’s first women’s nationalist group

• IG contracts influenza, lungs affected.

• MG meets JMB in Paris, definitive break with LM.

1901

• Embarks on a third lecture tour in USA to support JMB.

• Refuses JMB’s marriage proposal.

• Iseult collapses with high fever, meningitis feared at first and a lung affected.

1902:

• Plays the title role in Cathleen Ni Houlihan to packed houses in Carlendon Street Hall.

• Agrees to marry JMB.

• IG baptised.

• The Pot of Broth staged by Irish National Theatre Society.

• Former nanny and half-sister come to stay with her and family in France.

1903:

• Converts to Roman Catholicism with a view to marrying JMB.

• WBY is devastated, pleads with her not to marry.

• Marries John MacBride. They plan to assassinate Edward VII in Gibraltar on their honeymoon.

• Their plans fall through and marriage is quickly in trouble.

• Stages a public protest at a Rotunda public meeting planning a visit of King Edward VII and a widely publicised ‘private’ protest at her home in Rathgar, raising a black undergarment as a mourning flag for the Pope.

1904

• Gives birth to her son, Seán, SMB .

• Publishes her play Dawn in the United Irishman.

• Called from Dublin to Paris as her household is disturbed by John Macbride’s behaviour and Iseult has been abused by him.

• Tells WBY she has made a disastrous mistake in her marriage.

• Begins to seek legal advice on separation and divorce.

1905

• Files for separation from JMB and temporarily leaves politics.

• Begins to learn art.

• Occupied with Abbey Theatre business. 

1906:

• Achieves extension of free meals legislation for Irish schoolchildren. 

• Public JMB’s libel. Nationalist Dublin is split. JOL and men mostly side with JMB, women mostly with MG.

• Given custody of Sean despite MacBride’s plea, as Paris court rules in favour of separation.

• Hissed at and cheered by a divided but mostly hostile audience in Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Exiled to Paris.

1907

• Founds Bean na hÉireann, a nationalist feminist publication.

1908

• (June) MG and WBY renew their mystical marriage. 

1909

• Translates The Coming of Lugh.

• MG and Iseult Gonne try to learn Irish.

MIDDLE YEARS

1910:

• Translates Celtic Wonder Tales.

• Begins work to provide meals to pupils in Irish schools.

• Iseult proposes marriage to WBY and is refused because she has “too much Mars in her horoscope”.

1911

• Initiates a school meals program in Dublin modelled the French Canticus Scolaires model.

1912:

• Researches school meals campaign.

1913:

• Works to have Free School Meals Act extended to Ireland, organises food and clothing for the families of striking workers in the 1913 Lockout.

1914:

• Distributes clothing for strikers and children in Dublin.

• Lectures on the Dublin Lockout and Irish Home Rule in Paris.

• MG and IG nurse wounded in French military hospitals in Pyrenees and Normandy.

• Becomes a pacifist seeing the horror of war first hand.

1915

• MG and IG work in the Infirmière Hôspital Militaire, Paris.

1916:

• MG & IG nursing wounded at Paris-Plage and Paris.

• JMB executed for his role in the Easter Rising.

• Upon hearing of the Rising and the leaders’ executions, plans to return urgently to Ireland. Sells up her home but barred from travelling by the British War Office. Appeals to WBY to help her secure a passport.

• WBY visits MG in Colleville, Normandy and proposes marriage, she refuses. He then discusses possibility of marrying IG. 

1917:

• MG with IG and SMB returns to England. Served with a Defence of the Realm Act in Southampton, debarring entry to Ireland

• Meets Charlotte Despard (CD), founder of Women’s Freedom League.

• Lectures Workers’ Suffrage Federation on ‘Sinn Fein Ideals and Personalities.

• WBY gives marriage ultimatum to IG. She turns him down and he marries GY.

• MG escapes to Dublin in disguise with SMB.

1918:

• Lord French, CD’s brother, alleges a conspiracy between Sinn Fein and the German Empire. MG sent back to England and imprisoned in Holloway for writing seditious literature as part of this alleged ‘German plot’. Released after six months due to illness.

• WBY and GY move to Dublin, renting MG’s new home at 73 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin.

• Armistice ends World War I. Disguised as a Red Cross nurse, MG returns to Dublin. 

• WBY refuses MG access to her own house as GY is ill and pregnant. 

1919:

• Works for Sinn Féin Government Publicity Department.

• MG & CD travel around Ireland to report on English army atrocities.

• KG dies of tuberculosis

1920:

• Begins relief work 

• MG pressures IG into a church marriage with FS after their elopement to London.

• WBY arrives to help a pregnant Iseult who is being abused by FS

• SMB arrested

1921:  

• Initially supports Treaty but SMB does not. 

• Works for Sinn Fein in Publicity Department, on Parish Courts and relief work.

• White Cross formed and MG serves on Executive Committee.

• War of Independence intensifies then Britain calls a truce. 

• IG gives birth to a daughter, Dolores.

• IG’s daughter Dolores dies.

LATER YEARS

1922:

• Initially supports Treaty but SMB does not. 

• Travels to Paris to promote Free State at Irish Race Convention and to protest anti-Catholic pogroms in Northern Ireland.

• Forms The Women’s Peace Committee to try to reconcile the Free State and Republican sides. 

• As Civil War breaks out,she converts her home into a makeshift hospital.

• MG and CD establish  the Women’s Prisoners’ Defence League, Gonne serving as Secretary.

• MG and CD move into Roebuck House.

1923:

• WPDL banned by Free State and MG’s house repeatedly raided 

• Arrested under Free State’s Coercion Act for demonstrations with WPDL. Goes on hunger strike and released after 20 days.

• SMB active in IRA and on the run.

1924: 

• MG and CD organise Roebuck Industries, a cottage industry co-operative to provide employment for Republicans.

• Allows Roebuck House to be used for publication of radical literary journal Tomorrow.

1925:

1926:

• Joins executive of Workers’ Party of Ireland.

• SMcB marries Catalina (Id) Bulfin while on the run. Captured and arrested.

• Riots at the Abbey Theatre for Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. Supports Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington in feminist objections.

1927: 

• SMcB arrested on suspicion of Kevin O’Higgins murder.

1929:

• MG and SM with Frank Ryan found Comhairle na Poblachta, a new Republican and socialist political party.

• Becomes Executive member of Irish Labor Defence League.

1931: 

• Elected Chair of the National Aid Association, supporting republicans forced from employment and Chair of the Indian-Irish Independence League.

• Helps WPDF to reorganize as the People’s Rights Association

1932: 

• Honored for her work on behalf of Republican prisoners.

• Iseult joins MG at Roebuck House to help.

1933:

• Arrested for support of victims of Unionist Pogroms.

1936:

• MG and other activist women object to the anti-feminist articles in Éamon de Valera’s proposed new Irish Constitution.

• Stands for local elections in SMcB’s Clan na Phoblacta party and loses.

1937:

• Establishes monthly newsletter, Prison Bars to publicise treatment of prisoners and reject de Valera’s constitution.

• Irish Constitution adopted. Irish Free State becomes Éire.

1938:

• Her autobiography, ‘A Servant of the Queen’, published and serialized in The Irish Press.

• Final meeting with WBY at his home, Riversdale.

1939:

• WBY (73) dies on January 24 in Cap Martin, France. Buried in Roquebrune.

• MG writes series of articles criticizing the Orange Order.

1942: 

• Active in ‘Save the German Child’ campaign.

1949:

• SMB’s Clann na Phoblacta leadership drives final symbolic break with Britain.

• MG gives RTE radio broadcasts emphasising the achievements of Inghinidhe na hÉireann.

1953

• Requests to be buried with her son George’s shoes.

• Dies of cardiac failure in April at Roebuck House, Dublin, on April 27 in Dublin, aged 86. 

• Buried in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.