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.
2008 Taoiseach Bertie Aherne and the North’s First Minister, Revd Ian Paisley, opened a resort and spa in Ballymena, Co. Antrim.
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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
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.
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