March 16
Published in On this Day listing- 1820 John Scanlon was executed in Limerick for the murder of Ellen Hanley (15), ‘the Colleen Bawn’, the previous summer.
- 1988 Loyalist gunman Michael Stone opened fire and threw grenades at mourners attending the funeral of the Gibraltar Three. Three were killed, including IRA member Kevin Brady (see 19th).
- 1968 US troops led by Lt. William Calley murdered c. 500 civilians, mostly women and children, in the village of My Lai, South Vietnam.
- 1967 Thomas MacGreevy (74), scholar, poet, critic and director of the National Gallery of Ireland (1950–64), died.
- 1960 The 45,270-ton P & O liner Canberra was launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, the last large liner launched from the yard.
- 1907 John O’Leary, Fenian, known as ‘Pagan’ O’Leary on account of his anti-clericalism, died.
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