February 21
Published in On this Day listing- 1972 President Richard Nixon arrived in China on a week-long visit, the first US president to set foot on Chinese soil.
- 1922 Enlistment began into the police service of the Provisional Government, initially known as the Civic Guard. The first member was Patrick Joseph Kerrigan from County Mayo.
- 1823
Above: Revd Charles Wolfe—writer of perhaps ‘the greatest ode ever penned to an Englishman by an Irishman’.
Charles Wolfe (32), Church of Ireland clergyman and poet, author notably of The burial of Sir John Moore, died. Inspired by an account in the Edinburgh Annual Register of the midnight burial of Sir John Moore, the British general in command of the defence of Corunna against the French in the course of the Peninsular War (1807–14) who had directed his men to bury him where he fell, Wolfe wrote his ode when a student in Trinity College, Dublin:
‘Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried.
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.’
It is acknowledged as perhaps ‘the greatest ode ever penned to an Englishman by an Irishman’—a dubious accolade for Wolfe, considering that the dashing Sir John was a true servant of the British Empire who had served in many far-flung places, including Ireland. In June 1798 he defeated Fr Philip Roche and his insurgents at Goff’s Bridge (Faulke’s Mill), Co. Wexford, and the following day, while General Lake was wiping out the insurgents on Vinegar Hill, he retook Wexford town. Yet the poem was as popular in Ireland as anywhere else and regularly featured in poetry anthologies for many years afterwards. As for Wolfe, the son of Theobald Wolfe (1739–99) and therefore probably a half-brother of Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–98), he was ordained in November 1817 and thereafter served as a curate in County Tyrone. His health, however, was never good and declined considerably after a failed romance and the death of his close friend and mentor, the mathematician Thomas Meredith. He died of consumption in Cobh and was interred in the Old Church Cemetery.
- 1919 John O’Connor Power, Fenian and MP for County Mayo (1874–80), who was considered a candidate for leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party in succession to Isaac Butt, died.
- 1922 Recruitment began into the police force of the Provisional Government. Patrick Joseph Kerrigan from County Mayo became the first member of the ‘Civic Guard’.
- 1917 The SS Mendi, a South African troop-carrier steamer, was struck by HMS Brisk in the English Channel; 646 lives were lost.
- 1916 The Battle of Verdun, in north-eastern France, between the French and the Germans began.
- 1910 Sir Edward Carson replaced Walter Long as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.
- 1964 The Garda Training Centre in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, was officially opened by Charles J. Haughey, minister for justice, and Garda Commissioner Dan Costigan.
Personal Histories
On this Day
September 16
- 1982 The New Ireland Group was founded by Senator John Robb.
- 1977 Maria Callas (53), internationally acclaimed Greek-American soprano, whom shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis left in favour of Jacqueline Kennedy, died of a heart attack in Paris.
- 1941 Sixteen Irish soldiers were killed in an explosion whilst conducting tests with anti-tank mines in the Glen of Imaal, Co. Wicklow—the worst disaster in the history of the Irish defence forces.
- 1937 Ten male seasonal potato-gatherers, aged 13–23 years, from Achill Island perished in a fire in Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow. The group had only arrived in the village the previous evening. The females were lodged in a cottage and the ten males in a nearby bothy, which was basically a cowshed, to sleep there on inverted potato boxes covered with straw. When the fire broke out in the early hours of the morning they found that they had no means of escape, as the door was padlocked and the windows netted with wire. By the time the alarm was raised the bothy was engulfed in flames and the roof had collapsed. Their charred remains were found huddled against a wall. Only one, a lad called John McLoughlin, could be identified. Coming less than two years after nineteen ‘tatie-hokers’, as they were called, from Arranmore Island drowned on their way back from Scotland, the tragedy once again highlighted the plight of the c. 5,000 young Irish seasonal workers who led a nomadic existence in Scotland, toiling for wages that the lowest-paid Scottish labourer wouldn’t accept—and in the most wretched conditions. The fire took a terrible toll on individual Achill families. The Mangan family lost three sons. Mary, from the same family, was amongst the females in the group. Two other families lost two sons. The subsequent inquest concluded that the ten died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by overloading with coal of the stove or hot plate in the bothy as they slept. It also recommended that all accommodation for seasonal workers should be inspected and passed as safe and proper by the appropriate local authorities.
Above: Front page of the Irish Press of Friday 17 September 1937, reporting the tragedy.
- 1845 Thomas Davis, poet and Young Ireland leader, died, aged 30.
- 1810 Mexican independence from Spain was declared (National Day of Mexico).
- 1974 Martin McBirney (52), magistrate and well-known literary figure, was shot dead by the IRA at his home in East Belfast. At almost the exact same time Rory Conaghan (54), a senior judge, was shot dead by the IRA in front of his daughter at his home in South Belfast.