1952 Edmund O’Brien (71), County Limerick-born author and yachtsman who in 1923 circumnavigated the globe in his ketch Saoirse, died.
1870 Robert Noonan, house-painter, sign-writer and author, notably of The ragged-trousered philanthropists (1914), born Robert Croker, the illegitimate son of an RIC officer, at 37 Wexford Street, Dublin.
1949 Under the terms of the Republic of Ireland Act (December 1948), designed by John A. Costello’s coalition government to ‘take the gun out of Irish politics’, Ireland formally left the Commonwealth and became a republic.
1918 The Mansion House conference, called by the lord mayor of Dublin, Laurence O’Neill, on the day the Military Service Bill became law, was attended by all shades of nationalist opinion. An anti-conscription pledge, drafted by Éamon de Valera, was issued.
1870 Robert Tressell, nom de plume of Robert Croker, latterly Robert Noonan, author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (first unabridged edition published in 1955), was born in Dublin, the illegitimate son of RIC inspector and later magistrate Sir Samuel Croker.
2019 The journalist Lyra McKee (29) was shot dead by a New IRA gunman who opened fire on PSNI officers monitoring disturbances in Derry’s Creggan area. President Michael D. Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar attended her funeral.
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Personal Histories
Personal Histories is an initiative by History Ireland,
which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish
people both in Ireland and around the world. It is hoped
to build an extensive database reflecting Irish lives,
giving them a chance to be heard, remembered and to
add their voice to the historical record.
Click Here to go to the Personal Histories page
1869 Birth of Sir Edwin Lutyens, acclaimed British architect, whose works in Ireland include the Irish National War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge, Dublin.
1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott (43) died in Antarctica whilst returning from his expedition to the South Pole.
1859 The first edition of The Irish Times, Ireland’s first daily penny newspaper, appeared.
1793 Charlotte Brooke (c. 52), poet and translator, notably of Reliques of Irish poetry (1789), a collection of Ulster songs and poems in their original Irish forms along with her own translations, died. A daughter of the writer Henry Brooke (c. 1703–83), she was an ancestor of Lord Brookeborough, prime minister of Northern Ireland (1943–63).
1973 The last US serviceman departed from Vietnam. The Vietnam War claimed the lives of 58,281 US servicemen.