1969 The RUC dispersed a loyalist crowd massing at Unity Flats. Clashes began as they pushed them back to the Shankill, barricades went up, shops were looted and police cars set on fire. Fighting went on over night until B-Specials were sent in and the situation calmed down.
1916 Sir Roger Casement (51), humanitarian and militant nationalist, was hanged in Pentonville prison.
1914 Germany declared war on France. Britain became the last of the Great Powers to engage in the July crisis when the cabinet decided that a ‘substantial violation’ of Belgium had occurred, justifying war. Speaking in the House of Commons, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Redmond, pledged Ireland’s support for Britain should she enter the war.
1907 Augustus Saint-Gaudens (59), the dominant figure in nineteenth-century American public art, died.Whilst Chicago-born Lady Hazel Lavery (1880–1935) adorned Irish banknotes from 1928 until the 1970s,it is less well known that a Donegal woman made her début on US currency over two decades earlier. In 1904 the recently re-elected Theodore Roosevelt decided to redesign the existing $10 and $20 gold pieces and gave the job to Saint-Gaudens. The artist, however, seeking inspiration from the coinage of ancient Greece, soon hit a problem: he couldn’t visualise the face he required—that is, the story goes, until he stepped out to lunch one day to an inn near his studio in Cornish, New Hampshire.As the waitress approached him, he realised at once that he had found his model, none other than Mary Cunningham (24) from Carrick, Co. Donegal, who had emigrated to the US with six of her brothers and one sister. Her face, with its straight classical nose and strong chin, was precisely what he required for his ‘Miss Liberty’, which appeared on the back of the coins.Although there were some loud objections to the fact that the model for Liberty was Irish, little attention was drawn to the fact that Saint-Gaudens himself was Irish. His coins are regarded today as amongst the most exquisite of all American coinage.Saint-Gaudens is better known on this side of the pond for his Parnell monument on O’Connell Street, Dublin, unveiled in October 1911, four years after his death.
1823 Thomas Francis Meagher, Young Irelander and leader of the Irish Brigade in the Union army in the American Civil War, born in Waterford.
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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
1922 Commandant O’Neill, 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, was shot dead at the home of a Protestant family in Bandon, Co. Cork. In a series of unattributed reprisals, thirteen Protestant civilians were shot dead in the surrounding area over the following four days.
1920 RIC Sergeant Cornelius Crean, brother of the explorer Tom Crean, was killed by the IRA in an ambush near Upton, Co. Cork.
1870 Daniel Maclise (64), history and portrait painter who worked for most of his life in London, died.
1719 The life and strange adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published.
1819 Vere Foster, philanthropist and educationist, born in Copenhagen, where his Irish-born father was British minister.
1987 Lord Justice Gibson and his wife were killed by an IRA bomb as they crossed the border south of Newry, Co. Down.
1917 Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer, born in Newport News, Virginia.
1922 Commandant O’Neill of the third Cork Brigade IRA was shot dead at the home of a Protestant family in Bandon, Co. Cork. In a series of unattributed reprisals, thirteen Protestant civilians were shot dead in the surrounding area between 26 and 29 April.
1915 During the First World War, Allied troops landed on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula. The disastrous Gallipoli campaign, ending in January 1916, cost 46,000 Allied lives, including over 2,295 Irishmen.
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