1876 James McKnight (75), journalist and agrarian reformer, died. McKnight came to national prominence in 1847 as spokesman for the thousands of Presbyterian tenant farmers who flocked to join the Ulster Tenant Right League, which sought to give legal protection to the Ulster Custom. Regarded at the time as the leading Presbyterian layman, it was he who was chiefly responsible for focusing the aims of the League on the extension of the Ulster Custom to the whole island—the ‘three Fs’: fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure, meaning no eviction if rent had been paid. This programme was to guide the Irish land reform movement for the next 30 years. His lifelong passion, however, was in the cultural field, as an Irish-speaker who promoted the preservation and publication of ancient Irish manuscripts. Born near Rathfriland, Co. Down, he initially intended to become a Presbyterian minister before turning to journalism and becoming editor of the Belfast News Letter (1829–46). In the columns of that paper, he continually highlighted the common origins of the Irish and Scots Gaelic languages and, by implication, the shared culture of Irish Catholics and their Presbyterian neighbours. As a committed unionist, albeit a liberal one, he was sharply critical of the nationalist politics of Daniel O’Connell. The Repeal campaign, for instance, he described as divisive, suggesting that patriotic sentiment would be better served by reviving and promoting the Irish language. His enthusiasm for the language never waned. On his deathbed, the story goes, he asked his servant, a Catholic, to recite for him the Lord’s Prayer in Irish. She did as he requested, but at one point was interrupted by the dying McKnight, who pointed out that she had mispronounced one of the words.
1972 Garda Inspector Sam Donegan (61) was fatally injured by a gelignite bomb reportedly left by the Provisional IRA on the Cavan–Fermanagh border.
1949 George Orwell’s Nineteen-eighty-four, mostly written on the Scottish island of Jura when he was seriously ill with tuberculosis, was published.
1859 The first edition of the Irish Times as a daily newspaper was published.
1917 The Butte, Montana, mine disaster: 168 died, including many Irish, when fire broke out in a mineshaft. Butte was the US’s foremost mining town at the time, with a population of 50,000, a quarter of whom were Irish, mostly from County Cork.
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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
1972 Richard Moore (10) was blinded by a British Army rubber bullet in Derry. He subsequently founded Children in Crossfire (1996), a charity that aims to eradicate poverty and help children in war zones.
1921 In an incident known as ‘the Smashing of the Van’, IRA volunteers made an unsuccessful attempt to free Brigadier Frank Carty, who was being taken by armed escort to Glasgow’s Duke Street prison. One escorting officer was killed.
1939 In the wake of protests from northern Catholic bishops and Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that conscription would not extend to Northern Ireland.
1979 Margaret Thatcher became Britain’s first female prime minister.
1869 Tom Lefroy (93), Limerick-born lawyer and Irish chief justice (1852–66) who had a brief relationship with novelist Jane Austen (1795/6), died.
1916 Joseph Mary Plunkett (28), Ned Daly (25), Michael O’Hanrahan (39) and Willie Pearse (34) executed.
1773 Art Ó Laoghaire (26), former captain in the Hungarian Hussars under Empress Maria Theresa and subject of the famous lament Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire by his wife, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, was killed in a scuffle with soldiers near Millstreet, Co. Cork.
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