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December 16

Published in On this Day listing

1971 General Richard Mulcahy (85), revolutionary and politician, and founder-member of Fine Gael (1933), died.
1971 General Richard Mulcahy, second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in Easter Week 1916, chief-of-staff of the IRA during the War of Independence, GOC of Provisional Government military forces during the Civil War, government minister and leader of Fine Gael (1944–59), died.
1911 The Local Authorities (Ireland) (Qualification of Women) Act allowed women to become members of county and borough councils.
1965 William Somerset Maugham (91), English novelist, died.
2005 At a press conference in Dublin, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams announced that Denis Donaldson, their party’s group administrator in Stormont, had been a spy in the pay of MI5 for over twenty years.
1983 A garda and an Irish Army soldier were killed in a gun battle during an operation near Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, to free the businessman Don Tidey, who had been kidnapped by the IRA three weeks earlier.

On this Day

1920 Recruitment began, mainly from among demobilised British Army officers, into a new force—the ‘Auxiliary Division’—to augment the RIC.
1939 Michael Longley, poet, notable for ‘Gorse Fires’ (1991), ‘The Weather in Japan’ (2000) and ‘The Stairwell’ (2014), born in Belfast of English parents.
2004 Bob Tisdall (96), Olympic gold medal-winner in the 400m hurdles (Los Angeles, 1932) in a world record time of 51.7 seconds—which was not recognised under the rules at the time because he had hit a hurdle—died.
1866 The SS Great Eastern completed the laying of a transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island, Co. Kerry, and Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.