February 8
Published in On this Day listing- 1933 The eighth Dáil Éireann assembled: Eamon de Valera formed his second government, with a one-seat majority.
- 1929 James Connell, County Meath-born Fenian, Land Leaguer and writer of the British Labour Party anthem The Red Flag, died.
- 1926 The Plough and the Stars by Seán O’Casey opened in the Abbey Theatre. During the fourth performance there was a full-scale riot when the audience protested at what they perceived to be a slanderous distortion of historical events.
- 1912 The British home secretary, Winston Churchill, shared the platform with John Redmond at a Home Rule meeting in Celtic Park, Belfast. The organisers had been refused the use of the Ulster Hall, where Churchill’s father, a quarter of a century earlier, had warned that Home Rule could come upon them ‘as a thief in the night’.
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