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April 7

Published in On this Day listing

1922 The Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Bill became law, giving the minister for home affairs authority to detain suspects and to set up courts of summary jurisdiction.
1719 Death of Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (67), French priest and Catholic saint (canonised in 1900) who founded the De La Salle schools.
1868 Thomas D’Arcy McGee (42), Young Irelander, writer, politician and one of the fathers of the Canadian Confederation (1867), was assassinated in Ottawa by a Fenian sympathiser, Patrick J. Whelan.Thomas D’Arcy McGee, former Young Irelander and one of the ‘Fathers’ who negotiated the confederation of the Canadian provinces (1867), was assassinated at his home in Canada. Patrick Joseph Phelan, former British soldier and Fenian, was subsequently hanged for his murder.
1861 The census, the first to inquire into religious denominations in Ireland, showed that out of a population of 5,800,000 (a decrease of 11.5% since 1851) Catholics accounted for 4.5 million and Anglicans for just under 700,000, almost two thirds of whom lived in Ulster.

On this Day

1984 Ann Lovett (15) died while giving birth near a Marian grotto in Granard, Co. Longford.
1953 The Princess Victoria, an early roll-on–roll-off ferry, en route from Stranraer to Larne, sank in hurricane-force conditions off Belfast Lough, with the loss of 133 lives. It was Ireland’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.
1917 Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare.
1913 Having pledged to use ‘all means which may be found necessary’ to stop Home Rule, the Ulster Unionist Council formally inaugurated the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Up to 100,000 enlisted.
1923 The ferry Princess Victoria, en route from Stranraer to Larne, capsized off County Down after a wave burst unsecured bulkhead doors in the stern; 128 lives were lost and 43 survived.