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January 15

Published in On this Day listing

1872 John King (33), Tyrone-born soldier and the only survivor of the four men of the Burke and Wills expedition (1860–1), the first to cross Australia from south to north, died of tuberculosis.
1988 Seán MacBride (83), lawyer, government minister and international politician, died.
1988 Seán MacBride (83), lawyer, revolutionary and international jurist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1977), died.
1920 Using proportional representation (PR) for the first time, local government elections gave Sinn Féin, other nationalists and the Labour Party control of 172 out of 206 councils, including 72 out of the 127 municipal councils.
1861 Terence Bellew MacManus, Young Irelander who had been transported to Van Diemen’s Land for his role in the William Smith O’Brien affray at Ballingarry in July 1848, died in poverty in San Francisco. His funeral to Glasnevin in November that year was effectively stage-managed by the Fenian movement.

On this Day

1951 Mary McAleese, barrister, journalist, academic and president of Ireland (1997–2011), born in Ardoyne, Belfast, the eldest of nine children.
1970 After serious sectarian clashes in the north of the city that afternoon, which left three Protestants dead, the Provisional IRA, in action for the first time, engaged in a five-hour gun battle with loyalists in the Short Strand area. Three men, two Protestant and one Catholic, died.
1939 Kathleen Clarke (Caitlín Bean Uí Chléirigh), widow of executed Easter Rising leader Tom Clarke, was elected lord mayor of Dublin.
1970 The Provisional IRA were in action for the first time, mortally wounding four Protestants and losing one of their own members in a gun battle in the Short Strand area of Belfast.
1951 Mary McAleese, barrister, journalist, academic and current president of Ireland (since 1997), born in Ardoyne, Belfast, the eldest of nine children.
1846 Charles Stewart Parnell, nationalist leader, was born.