1972 Following the resignation of the Northern Ireland prime minister, Brian Faulkner, and his cabinet over the transfer of security to Westminster, Prime Minister Edward Heath announced that the Northern Ireland government would be suspended and replaced by direct rule from Westminster, with William Whitelaw as secretary of state.
1922 Uniformed police officers broke into the home of Catholic publican Owen McMahon in north Belfast and shot him dead, along with four of his sons and one of his employees.
1980 Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated as he celebrated Mass by a right-wing group led by a former mayor. His death provoked an international outcry for reform in El Salvador.
1972 Following the refusal of Brian Faulkner and his cabinet to accept the transfer of security to Westminster, Prime Minister Edward Heath announced the suspension of the Northern Ireland government, to be replaced by direct rule from London. William Whitelaw took up office as the first secretary of state for Northern Ireland a week later.
1968 The Aer Lingus Viscount St Phelim plunged into the sea near Tuskar Rock, Co. Wexford, with the loss of 61 lives.
1968 An Aer Lingus Viscount, St Phelim, with 57 passengers and a crew of four, en route from Cork to London, crashed into the sea off Tuscar Rock, Co. Wexford. There were no survivors.
1922 In the early hours of the morning uniformed men, either RIC or Ulster Special Constabulary, broke into the home of Owen MacMahon, a Catholic publican, off the Antrim Road in Belfast and murdered him, four other members of his family and a sixth man. Two more members of the family were wounded.
1909 John Millington Synge, playwright, died.
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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
1920 General Tom Barry’s Cork No. 3 (West Cork) Brigade wiped out an eighteen-man Auxiliary patrol at Kilmichael, on the Macroom–Dunmanway road, Co. Cork.
1979 John Hume MEP was elected leader of the SDLP in succession to Gerry Fitt.
1990 Margaret Thatcher, Conservative prime minister of the UK since May 1979, resigned. She was succeeded by John Major.
1979 John Hume succeeded Gerry Fitt as leader of the SDLP, a position he held until 2001.
1905 The Sinn Féin movement—the name famously coined by Máire Butler, a cousin of Irish unionist leader Sir Edward Carson—was launched by Arthur Griffith with the aim of re-establishing the independence of Ireland by withdrawing from the Westminster parliament and setting up a government in Dublin.
1863 First edition of the Fenian newspaper the Irish People. Circulating chiefly in Dublin, it was suppressed by the authorities in September 1865.
1977 Following a strike (from 3 August) at the Ferenka steel cord factory in County Limerick, the plant was closed with the loss of 1,400 jobs.