July 20
Published in On this Day listing- 2011 ‘The Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism—the narcissism—that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day. The rape and torture of children were downplayed or “managed” to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and “reputation”’—Taoiseach Enda Kenny, speaking at the opening of a debate on the Cloyne Report in Dáil Éireann.
- 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon when he emerged along with Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin from Apollo 11’s lunar module, Eagle.
- 1996 Michelle Smyth/de Bruin won the first of three gold medals in swimming at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, making her Ireland’s most successful Olympian. Two years later she received a four-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport for tampering with her urine sample.
- 1969 The Derry Citizens’ Action Committee was superseded by the more militant Derry Citizens’ Defence Association.
- 1918 The British troop-ship SS Justicia, en route from Belfast to New York, sank c. 45km north-west of Malin Head after being struck several times by German torpedoes. Sixteen crewmen lost their lives.
- 1616 Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, died in Rome.
- 1616 Hugh O’Neill,earl of Tyrone, died in exile in Rome.
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Personal Histories
On this Day
June 8
1876 James McKnight (75), journalist and agrarian reformer, died. McKnight came to national prominence in 1847 as spokesman for the thousands of Presbyterian tenant farmers who flocked to join the Ulster Tenant Right League, which sought to give legal protection to the Ulster Custom. Regarded at the time as the leading Presbyterian layman, it was he who was chiefly responsible for focusing the aims of the League on the extension of the Ulster Custom to the whole island—the ‘three Fs’: fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure, meaning no eviction if rent had been paid. This programme was to guide the Irish land reform movement for the next 30 years. His lifelong passion, however, was in the cultural field, as an Irish-speaker who promoted the preservation and publication of ancient Irish manuscripts. Born near Rathfriland, Co. Down, he initially intended to become a Presbyterian minister before turning to journalism and becoming editor of the Belfast News Letter (1829–46). In the columns of that paper, he continually highlighted the common origins of the Irish and Scots Gaelic languages and, by implication, the shared culture of Irish Catholics and their Presbyterian neighbours. As a committed unionist, albeit a liberal one, he was sharply critical of the nationalist politics of Daniel O’Connell. The Repeal campaign, for instance, he described as divisive, suggesting that patriotic sentiment would be better served by reviving and promoting the Irish language. His enthusiasm for the language never waned. On his deathbed, the story goes, he asked his servant, a Catholic, to recite for him the Lord’s Prayer in Irish. She did as he requested, but at one point was interrupted by the dying McKnight, who pointed out that she had mispronounced one of the words.- 1972 Garda Inspector Sam Donegan (61) was fatally injured by a gelignite bomb reportedly left by the Provisional IRA on the Cavan–Fermanagh border.
- 1949 George Orwell’s Nineteen-eighty-four, mostly written on the Scottish island of Jura when he was seriously ill with tuberculosis, was published.
- 1859 The first edition of the Irish Times as a daily newspaper was published.
- 1917 The Butte, Montana, mine disaster: 168 died, including many Irish, when fire broke out in a mineshaft. Butte was the US’s foremost mining town at the time, with a population of 50,000, a quarter of whom were Irish, mostly from County Cork.