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August 31

Published in On this Day listing

1971 Clifford Loring (18) of the Royal Artillery Regiment was shot dead by an IRA sniper whilst on checkpoint duty in West Belfast, the 35th death since the introduction of internment that month.
1994 The IRA announced a ‘complete cessation of military operations’.
1997 Diana, Princess of Wales (36), was killed in a road traffic accident in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris. Her funeral, a week later, attracted a worldwide television audience of over one billion.
1969 Figures published showed that ten deaths had occurred in Northern Ireland during the violence of July/August; 154 people had suffered gunshot wounds and 745 had been injured in other ways; 170 homes had been destroyed and another 417 damaged. Catholic-owned or occupied property accounted for 83.5% of the damage.
1994 The IRA announced ‘a complete cessation of military operations’.
1767 Henry Joy McCracken, United Irishman, born in High Street, Belfast.

On this Day

1933 The eighth Dáil Éireann assembled: Eamon de Valera formed his second government, with a one-seat majority.
1929 James Connell, County Meath-born Fenian, Land Leaguer and writer of the British Labour Party anthem The Red Flag, died.
1926 The Plough and the Stars by Seán O’Casey opened in the Abbey Theatre. During the fourth performance there was a full-scale riot when the audience protested at what they perceived to be a slanderous distortion of historical events.
1912 The British home secretary, Winston Churchill, shared the platform with John Redmond at a Home Rule meeting in Celtic Park, Belfast. The organisers had been refused the use of the Ulster Hall, where Churchill’s father, a quarter of a century earlier, had warned that Home Rule could come upon them ‘as a thief in the night’.