1971 A 15lb. Provisional IRA bomb exploded at the Electricity Board of Northern Ireland’s offices in Belfast’, killing Harry Beggs (23), a close schoolfriend of Peter Robinson, later first minister of Northern Ireland (2008–16), and injuring 35 others. Robinson disclosed years later that it was Beggs’s death that prompted him to enter politics.
1819 Alan Pinkerton, emigrant to the United States who founded the national detective agency that bears his name, born in the Gorbals, Glasgow.
1997 The McCracken Tribunal reported that former taoiseach Charles J. Haughey had received £1.3m from supermarket co-owner Ben Dunne and that his evidence, under oath, was either ‘unacceptable’ or ‘unbelievable’ on eleven different points.
1986 Hurricane Charley, one of the century’s worst storms, caused extensive damage, particularly in the east of the country.
1580 Battle of Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow. Crown forces under George Moore were heavily defeated by rebels.
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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
1992 Five Catholics were killed when UFF gunmen attacked a betting shop on the Ormeau Road, Belfast. Seven others were wounded.
1921 Katherine O’Shea Parnell (76), widow of Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–91), died at Littlehampton, Sussex. (See ‘100 Years Ago’, p. 70.)
1820 William Drennan (66), United Irishman, physician, co-founder of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (1810) and poet, author of ‘The Wake of William Orr’, died.
1992 Five Catholic men were shot dead by two UFF gunmen in an attack on Seán Graham’s bookmaker’s shop on the Ormeau Road, Belfast.
1921 Katherine O’Shea (76), wife of Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–91), died at 39 East Ham Road, Littlehampton, Sussex.
1918 The luxury liner SS Tuscania, en route from New Jersey to Liverpool with over 2,000 US servicemen, was torpedoed and sunk by a German Uboat 13km north of Rathlin Island. Around 210 servicemen and crew lost their lives.
1917 In the Roscommon North by-election, Count Plunkett, father of Joseph Plunkett (1887–1916), who was endorsed by Sinn Féin, defeated T.J. Devine (Irish Parliamentary Party) by 3,022 votes to 1,708.
2013 The McAleese report on the Magdalene laundries was published. It found ‘significant’ State collusion in the admission of thousands of ‘fallen women’ into the institutions, where they were abused and worked for nothing in conditions of slavery.