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June 26

Published in On this Day listing

1972 Neil Blaney was expelled from Fianna Fáil for ‘conduct unbecoming a member of the organisation’.
1972 The Provisional IRA announced a ceasefire.
1917 The first of over one million troops of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), under General John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing, arrived in France.
1966 Peter Ward (18), a Catholic barman, was shot dead by the UVF in Malvern Street, off Belfast’s Shankill Road. Three members of the UVF, including Augustus ‘Gusty’ Spence, were later convicted of his murder.
1986 A referendum on making divorce available in the Irish Republic was defeated, with a vote of 63% against and 36% for, in a 62% turnout.
1996 Veronica Guerin (35), investigative journalist with the Sunday Independent, was shot dead in Dublin.
1981 The 22nd Dáil Éireann assembled. Garret Fitzgerald was elected taoiseach in a Fine Gael–Labour coalition government.
1963 US President John F. Kennedy arrived in Ireland on a four-day official visit.

On this Day

1920 Units of Cork No. 2 (North) Brigade led by Liam Lynch and Ernie O’Malley captured the military barracks in Mallow, Co. Cork, the only one captured during the War of Independence, and recovered a large quantity of arms and ammunition. Mallow was sacked in reprisal.
2001 Martin O’Hagan (51), investigative journalist who specialised in exposing paramilitary drug-dealing gangs, was assassinated by loyalists near his home in Lurgan, Co. Armagh.
1966 The ‘Tricolour riots’, the worst disturbances in Belfast for over 30 years, began when the RUC, under the terms of the notorious Flags and Emblems Display Act (1954), forcibly removed a tricolour from a window at the election headquarters in Divis Street of Liam McMillan, Republican (Sinn Féin) candidate in the impending Westminster election.
The Ulster Orchestra was founded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
1920 The IRA, led by Liam Lynch and Ernie O’ Malley, captured the military barracks in Mallow, Co. Cork—the only military barracks captured by the IRA during the War of Independence. Crown forces sacked the town in reprisal.
1912 In a demonstration of their hostility to the proposed Third Home Rule Bill, over 200,000 unionists, led by Sir Edward Carson, signed the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’.