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January 08

Published in On this Day listing

1871 James Craig, Unionist politician and first prime minister of Northern Ireland, born in Sydenham, Belfast, the son of a wealthy whiskey distiller.
1979 An explosion on Whiddy Island, Bantry Bay, Co. Cork, killed 50 and destroyed the French tanker Betelgeuse.
1989 A Boeing 737, en route from Heathrow to Belfast, crashed on the M1 at Kegworth, near East Midlands Airport; 47 lost their lives.

On this Day

1968 Denis McCullough (85), co-founder of the Dungannon Clubs (1905) with Bulmer Hobson and director of the IRB in Ulster at the time of the Easter Rising, died.
1954 Robert Smyllie, influential editor of the Irish Times, died.
1922 The Local Government Act (NI) abolished PR for local elections and required a declaration of allegiance from persons elected to or working for local authorities.
1910 Robert Loraine, British actor and Boer War veteran, in his Henry Farman biplane became the first man to fly across the Irish Sea.
1741 Arthur Young, English agricultural theorist and traveller, and author of the acclaimed A Tour of Ireland (1780), born.
1922 The Local Government Act (NI) abolished PR, introduced by Westminster three years earlier as a ‘minority safeguard’, for local elections and required a declaration of allegiance from persons elected to or working for local authorities.
1954 Robert ‘Bertie’ Smylie (61), editor of the Irish Times since 1934, who transformed the paper from an Ascendancy viewpoint to one with a non-partisan profile, died.