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January 24

Published in On this Day listing

1991 John Kelly (59), Fine Gael politician, government minister, attorney general (May–July 1987) and lawyer who wrote extensively on legal matters, notably The Irish Constitution (1980), died.
1920 Percy French (65), civil engineer, watercolourist and entertainer, died from pneumonia in Formby, Lancashire.
1986 By-elections were held for the fifteen House of Commons seats held by Unionists. Under the slogan ‘Ulster says no’, Unionist MPs had resigned their seats and used the elections as a referendum on the Anglo-Irish Agreement (November 1985); 418,230 votes were cast against the Agreement.
1966 Indira Ghandi, daughter of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlai Nehru, took office as prime minister.
1862 Myles Byrne, United Irishman who fought at Vinegar Hill in 1798 and later for France in the Napoleonic campaigns of 1804–15, died in Paris.

On this Day

2011 The last British troops pulled out of South Armagh. During the period 1970–97, the IRA killed 165 members of the British security forces in the area.
1870 (Robert) Erskine Childers, Sinn Féin politician and author of The riddle of the sands (1903), born in London but raised at the maternal home, Glendalough House, Co. Wicklow, along with his cousin, Robert Childers Barton (1881–1975)
1970 The Catholic hierarchy lifted the ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
1919 William Martin Murphy (75), founder of Independent Newspapers and leader of the Employers’ Federation during the lockout of 1913–14, died.
1970 The Irish Catholic hierarchy lifted its ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
1876 The Battle of Little Big Horn, Montana, USA. Of Custer’s 604-strong 7th Cavalry, some 128 were of Irish birth, representing 29 of the 32 counties. Half of the 215 men who died with him that day were Irish.