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.
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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 At 4.07am a field gun fired across the River Liffey by Provisional Government forces at the anti-Treaty IRA garrison in the Four Courts marked the beginning of the Civil War.
1920 Members of ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies of the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, quartered in Jullundur, Punjab, refused to soldier because of reports reaching them of atrocities being committed in Ireland by members of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries.
1919 The Treaty of Versailles was signed, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led directly to the outbreak of the First World War.
1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife were assassinated in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo.
1963 J.F. Kennedy, president of the United States, addressed Dáil Éireann. In his speech, Kennedy had planned to quote Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s observation that his family home, Leinster House, ‘does not inspire the brightest of ideas’. The comment was suppressed by an unimpressed Eamon de Valera.
1922 The bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin, occupied by an anti-Treaty IRA garrison, by the pro-Treaty National Army commences at 4am, marking the beginning of the Civil War.
1920 Members of ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies of the Connaught Rangers mutinied in the Punjab in protest against British atrocities in Ireland. Private James Daly was subsequently court-martialled and executed; other mutineers were sentenced to penal servitude.
1912 The Irish Labour Party was founded in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.