Dec 4

April 23

• 1931 Chuck Feeney, businessman and philanthropist who gave away his fortune of $8 billion over a 38-year period, including $1.3b to projects in the Republic of Ireland and $570m to projects in Northern Ireland, born to Irish-American parents in New Jersey.
• 1971 C.B. (Cyril Bentham) Falls, military correspondent of The Times (1939–53), historian and author notably of The history of the 36th (Ulster) Division (1922), based on his own experiences, died.
• 1970 St Enda’s, Rathfarnham, the bilingual school founded by Patrick Pearse in 1908, was presented to the nation as a Patrick Pearse Museum.
• 1918 A general strike against conscription, organised by the Labour movement and supported by Sinn Féin, the IPP and the Catholic hierarchy, paralysed the country.
• 1616 William Shakespeare (52), dramatist and poet, died.
• 1014 The Battle of Clontarf, near Dublin. Brian Boru, claimant to the high kingship of Ireland, and his Munster forces defeated an army of Leinster Norse, supported by their kinsmen from Northumbria, the Isle of Man and the Orkneys.