1982 Corporal punishment was banned in schools in the Republic of Ireland.
1969 Charles Bewley, lawyer and diplomat, first Irish minister to the Holy See (1929) and to Berlin (1933–9), from where he was recalled by de Valera, died.
1968 The image of South Vietnam’s police chief General Loan summarily executing a captured Viet Cong suspect was widely circulated in the American press, shaking the American public’s confidence in their South Vietnamese allies.
1966 Buster Keaton (70), comedian and one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest actor-directors, notably of The General (1926), died.
1963 Cardinal John Francis D’Alton, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland since 1946, died.
1918 William Melville (67) from Sneem, Co. Kerry, head of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and from 1909 first chief of the British Secret Service, died.
1815 In a duel, regarded at the time as a contest between Orange and Green, Daniel O’Connell fatally wounded Dublin councillor John d’Esterre.
1814 Belfast Academical Institution, locally known as ‘Inst’, was formally opened. In his inaugural address, the poet and former United Irishman Dr William Drennan announced that the aim of the school was to ‘diffuse useful knowledge, particularly among the middling orders of society, as a necessity, not a luxury of life’.
1612 Conor O’Devany, Franciscan bishop of Down and Connor, and Fr Patrick O’Loughran of Donaghmore in the archdiocese of Armagh were hanged, drawn and quartered at George’s Hill, Dublin, for suspected association with the earl of Tyrone.
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Personal Histories
Personal Histories is an initiative by History Ireland,
which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish
people both in Ireland and around the world. It is hoped
to build an extensive database reflecting Irish lives,
giving them a chance to be heard, remembered and to
add their voice to the historical record.
Click Here to go to the Personal Histories page
2011 The last British troops pulled out of South Armagh. During the period 1970–97, the IRA killed 165 members of the British security forces in the area.
1870 (Robert) Erskine Childers, Sinn Féin politician and author of The riddle of the sands (1903), born in London but raised at the maternal home, Glendalough House, Co. Wicklow, along with his cousin, Robert Childers Barton (1881–1975)
1970 The Catholic hierarchy lifted the ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
1919 William Martin Murphy (75), founder of Independent Newspapers and leader of the Employers’ Federation during the lockout of 1913–14, died.
1970 The Irish Catholic hierarchy lifted its ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
1876 The Battle of Little Big Horn, Montana, USA. Of Custer’s 604-strong 7th Cavalry, some 128 were of Irish birth, representing 29 of the 32 counties. Half of the 215 men who died with him that day were Irish.