1919 In Dáil Éireann, a motion proposed by Cathal Brugha that its members, its officials and the Irish Volunteers swear allegiance to the Dáil and the Irish Republic was passed. The Irish Volunteers thereby became the standing army of the Irish Republic—the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
1988 Eight soldiers from the Light Infantry Regiment, aged 18–21 years, were killed when an IRA bomb went off under their bus as it travelled on the Ballygawley to Omagh road in County Tyrone. A further nineteen were injured.
1967 Derrynane Abbey, Co. Kerry, home of Daniel O’Connell, opened as a museum.
1940 Leon Trotsky, exiled Bolshevik revolutionary, Marxist theorist and founder and commander of the Red Army, was assassinated at his home in Coyoacan, near Mexico city.
1912 William Booth (83), English social reformer, evangelist and founder of the Salvation Army, died.
1868 Thirty-three died when the Irish mail train, en route from Euston to Holyhead, collided with runaway wagons from a goods train. Amongst the dead were Henry Maxwell, Lord Farnham, landlord and MP for County Cavan since 1824, and his wife.
1778 Bernardo O’Higgins, the father of Chilean independence, was born in Chillán, a son of Sligo-born Ambrose O’Higgins.
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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 Neil Blaney was expelled from Fianna Fáil for ‘conduct unbecoming a member of the organisation’.
1972 The Provisional IRA announced a ceasefire.
1917 The first of over one million troops of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), under General John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing, arrived in France.
1966 Peter Ward (18), a Catholic barman, was shot dead by the UVF in Malvern Street, off Belfast’s Shankill Road. Three members of the UVF, including Augustus ‘Gusty’ Spence, were later convicted of his murder.
1986 A referendum on making divorce available in the Irish Republic was defeated, with a vote of 63% against and 36% for, in a 62% turnout.
1996 Veronica Guerin (35), investigative journalist with the Sunday Independent, was shot dead in Dublin.
1981 The 22nd Dáil Éireann assembled. Garret Fitzgerald was elected taoiseach in a Fine Gael–Labour coalition government.
1963 US President John F. Kennedy arrived in Ireland on a four-day official visit.
1819 Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, explorer who confirmed the deaths of Sir John Franklin and his crew of 129 in an attempt to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage (1845), born in Seatown Terrace, Dundalk.
1819 Ellen Hanley (15), the celebrated ‘Colleen Bawn’, was murdered on the River Shannon by Stephen Sullivan, servant of her alleged husband, John Scanlan.