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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

1960 Sixty-nine people were killed and 189 others injured when police opened fire on a crowd of c. 5,000–7,000 protesting against pass laws outside the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville.
1920 An t-Athair Peadar Ó Laoghaire (81), scholar and author, notably of Mo scéal féin (1915), died.
1978 Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh (66), jurist and president of Ireland (1974–6), died.
1961 Joseph Holloway, architect and theatrical enthusiast, born in Lower Camden Street, Dublin. Over a 50-year period Holloway attended every theatre performance in the city and kept a journal in which he wrote some 28 million words on Dublin’s theatre world.
1960 South African police opened fire on black protesters at Sharpeville, a black township near Johannesburg, killing 69 and injuring over 180.