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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

1951 Mary McAleese, barrister, journalist, academic and president of Ireland (1997–2011), born in Ardoyne, Belfast, the eldest of nine children.
1970 After serious sectarian clashes in the north of the city that afternoon, which left three Protestants dead, the Provisional IRA, in action for the first time, engaged in a five-hour gun battle with loyalists in the Short Strand area. Three men, two Protestant and one Catholic, died.
1939 Kathleen Clarke (Caitlín Bean Uí Chléirigh), widow of executed Easter Rising leader Tom Clarke, was elected lord mayor of Dublin.
1970 The Provisional IRA were in action for the first time, mortally wounding four Protestants and losing one of their own members in a gun battle in the Short Strand area of Belfast.
1951 Mary McAleese, barrister, journalist, academic and current president of Ireland (since 1997), born in Ardoyne, Belfast, the eldest of nine children.
1846 Charles Stewart Parnell, nationalist leader, was born.