February 11
Published in On this Day listing- 1992 Albert Reynolds was elected leader of Fianna Fáil.
- 1922 At Clones railway station, Co. Monaghan, the IRA attacked a group of Ulster Special Constables travelling from Newtownards to Enniskillen. Four Specials and an IRA commander were shot dead. News of the incident sparked off fresh sectarian violence in Belfast, including the killing of six Catholic children in a loyalist bomb attack in Weaver Street.
- 1971 Delia Murphy (69), internationally acclaimed ballad-singer who, as wife of T.J. Kiernan, Irish ambassador to the Vatican during the Second World War, assisted Jews and escaped prisoners of war, died.
- 1929 The Lateran Treaty, recognising Vatican City as an independent state, was signed by the Holy See and the Italian government under Mussolini.
- 1990 Nelson Mandela was released after spending 27 years in prison in South Africa.
- 1922 Four Ulster Special Constables and Commandant Fitzpatrick of the IRA were shot dead when the local IRA attacked the train in which they were travelling at Clones railway station, Co. Monaghan. The episode sparked off a fresh bout of intercommunal violence in Belfast, where the death toll that month was 44. (See pp 38–41.)
- 1923 Dr T.F. O’Higgins, father of Kevin O’Higgins, was shot dead at his home in Stradbally, Co. Laois.
- 1984 F.W. Moody (77), historian and co-editor with F.X. Martin of The course of Irish history (1967), died.
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