History Ireland

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December 08

1921 Eamon de Valera denounced the Anglo-Irish Treaty as being ‘in violent conflict with the wishes of the majority of this nation as expressed in successive elections during the past […]

October 29

1971 Two men were killed and 27 injured in an unclaimed IRA bomb attack on the crowded Four Step Inn on Belfast’s Shankill Road.

July 02

1980 General Tom Barry (83), leader of the West Cork flying column responsible for the ambushes at Kilmichael (Nov. ’20) and Crossbarry (March ’21), and author notably of Guerrilla days […]

July 04

1931 Willie Millar, actor, born in Glengormley in north Belfast, one of nine children of a poor Presbyterian family. Back in 1959 the must-see movie was the William Wyler-directed adaptation […]

February 29

1940 Gone with the Wind, an epic historical romance based on Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 bestseller, starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, won ten awards, including best picture, at the 12th […]

January 16

1922 Michael Collins, as chairman of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland, formally accepted the transfer of power from the British authorities at Dublin Castle.
1822 Thomas Clarke Luby, revolutionary, author, journalist and founding member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (1858), born in Dublin, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman.
1991 Operation Desert Storm, a military operation by a US-led coalition of two dozen nations to expel occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait, began.
1920 Prohibition came into force in the USA following ratification of the 18th amendment to the constitution.
1969 A Czech student, Jan Palach (20), burned himself to death in Wenceslas Square, Prague, in protest against the continuing presence of Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia.
1922 Michael Collins, as chairman of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland, formally accepted the transfer of power from the British at Dublin Castle.
1816 Frances Browne, known as ‘the blind poetess of Donegal’, whose fairy-tale Granny’s wonderful chair and its tales of fairy times (1856) won international acclaim, born in Stranorlar, Co. Donegal.
1913 The Home Rule bill was carried in the House of Commons (367–257) but was defeated in the House of Lords (326–69) a fortnight later.
1809 The Battle of Corunna took place, in which the British, led by Sir John Moore, won a rearguard action against the French. The death of Moore in the Peninsular War was to inspire the classic poem On the Burial of Sir John Moore (1817) by Kildare-born Revd Charles Wolfe (1791–1823).