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December 31

Published in On this Day listing

1961 Radio Teilifís Éireann, the national television service, was launched with an address by President Eamon de Valera.
1869 Henri Matisse (84), leading figure in modern art, born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in the Nord department in northern France.
1961 Telefís Éireann was launched by President Eamon de Valera.
1964 Daniel Corkery (86), teacher and author, notably of The hidden Ireland (1924), died.
1930 Mayo County Council was dissolved for refusing to appoint Miss Letitia Dunbar-Harrison, a Protestant and Trinity College graduate, who was the recommended candidate of the Local Appointments Commission for the position of County Librarian. The council claimed that her grasp of Irish was inadequate.
1909 Harry Ferguson flew 130 yards in force nine winds in a monoplane at Hillsborough Forest Park, Co. Down, thus becoming the first Irishman to build and fly his own aeroplane.
1759 Arthur Guinness secured a 9,000-year lease on four acres of ground at St James’s Gate, Dublin, for an annual rent of £45, including water rights.
1975 Five people were killed and 30 injured in Iarnród Éireann’s worst disaster at Clogh Bridge, Tubberneering, Co. Wexford.

On this Day

1820 Sir William Howard Russell, one of the first modern war correspondents, whose coverage included the Crimean War and the American Civil War, born in Tallaght, Dublin.
1969 Death of Dwight D. ‘Ike’ Eisenhower (78), American army general, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the Second World War and 34th (Republican) president of the United States (1953–61).
1979 The worst-ever accident in the US nuclear power industry began when a pressure valve in a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania failed to close.
1957 Jack Butler Yeats (85), painter and younger brother of W.B. Yeats, died.
1972 Eight people, seven of them young girls, died when fire destroyed the offices of Noyek’s timber merchants in Parnell Street, Dublin.
1820 William Howard Russell, the first modern war correspondent, renowned for his reports on the mismanagement of the Crimean War for The Times (London), born at Lily Vale, Tallaght, Co. Dublin.
1760 Dublin-born Margaret (Peg) Woffington, renowned beauty and leading actress on the London stage for almost two decades, died.
1973 Irish naval service vessels apprehended the Claudia, a Cypriot coaster, off County Waterford. Six men, including Joe Cahill, were arrested for conspiracy to import arms.