1986 In Westminster by-elections forced by their resignations in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement, fourteen of the fifteen Unionist MPs regained their seats. Seamus Mallon won a seat for the SDLP.
1980 Guiseppe Conlon (57), one of the ‘Maguire Seven’ whose convictions were overturned in 1991, died in Hammersmith Hospital, London, in the fifth year of a twelve-year sentence for possession of explosives.
1861 Katherine Tynan, author of over 160 volumes of poetry and prose and central figure in the Literary Revival, born in Dublin.
1918 Major Robert Gregory (38), only son of Augusta, Lady Gregory, was shot down and killed by friendly fire on the Italian front whilst serving with the Royal Flying Corps.
1803 Arthur Guinness, founder of Guinness’s brewery and Ireland’s first Sunday school (1786), died.
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Personal Histories
Personal Histories is an initiative by History Ireland,
which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish
people both in Ireland and around the world. It is hoped
to build an extensive database reflecting Irish lives,
giving them a chance to be heard, remembered and to
add their voice to the historical record.
Click Here to go to the Personal Histories page
1920 General Tom Barry’s Cork No. 3 (West Cork) Brigade wiped out an eighteen-man Auxiliary patrol at Kilmichael, on the Macroom–Dunmanway road, Co. Cork.
1979 John Hume MEP was elected leader of the SDLP in succession to Gerry Fitt.
1990 Margaret Thatcher, Conservative prime minister of the UK since May 1979, resigned. She was succeeded by John Major.
1979 John Hume succeeded Gerry Fitt as leader of the SDLP, a position he held until 2001.
1905 The Sinn Féin movement—the name famously coined by Máire Butler, a cousin of Irish unionist leader Sir Edward Carson—was launched by Arthur Griffith with the aim of re-establishing the independence of Ireland by withdrawing from the Westminster parliament and setting up a government in Dublin.
1863 First edition of the Fenian newspaper the Irish People. Circulating chiefly in Dublin, it was suppressed by the authorities in September 1865.
1977 Following a strike (from 3 August) at the Ferenka steel cord factory in County Limerick, the plant was closed with the loss of 1,400 jobs.