1922 At 4.07am a field gun fired across the River Liffey by Provisional Government forces at the anti-Treaty IRA garrison in the Four Courts marked the beginning of the Civil War.
1920 Members of ‘B’ and ‘C’ Companies of the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers, quartered in Jullundur, Punjab, refused to soldier because of reports reaching them of atrocities being committed in Ireland by members of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries.
1919 The Treaty of Versailles was signed, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led directly to the outbreak of the First World War.
1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife were assassinated in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo.
1963 J.F. Kennedy, president of the United States, addressed Dáil Éireann. In his speech, Kennedy had planned to quote Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s observation that his family home, Leinster House, ‘does not inspire the brightest of ideas’. The comment was suppressed by an unimpressed Eamon de Valera.
1922 The bombardment of the Four Courts in Dublin, occupied by an anti-Treaty IRA garrison, by the pro-Treaty National Army commences at 4am, marking the beginning of the Civil War.
1920 Members of ‘B’ and ‘C’ companies of the Connaught Rangers mutinied in the Punjab in protest against British atrocities in Ireland. Private James Daly was subsequently court-martialled and executed; other mutineers were sentenced to penal servitude.
1912 The Irish Labour Party was founded in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
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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
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.
1819 Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, explorer who confirmed the deaths of Sir John Franklin and his crew of 129 in an attempt to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage (1845), born in Seatown Terrace, Dundalk.
1819 Ellen Hanley (15), the celebrated ‘Colleen Bawn’, was murdered on the River Shannon by Stephen Sullivan, servant of her alleged husband, John Scanlan.