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May 16

Published in On this Day listing

1920 A year after the short-lived Limerick Soviet, workers took over Cleeve’s creamery in Knocklong after their wage demands were refused and they were locked out. They handed back control in less than a week.
1916 Britain and France concluded the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement that was to divide the Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War into French and British ‘spheres of influence’.
1926 The Fianna Fáil Party was founded by Éamon de Valera.
1926 Fianna Fáil party was founded.

On this Day

1920 Recruitment began, mainly from among demobilised British Army officers, into a new force—the ‘Auxiliary Division’—to augment the RIC.
1939 Michael Longley, poet, notable for ‘Gorse Fires’ (1991), ‘The Weather in Japan’ (2000) and ‘The Stairwell’ (2014), born in Belfast of English parents.
2004 Bob Tisdall (96), Olympic gold medal-winner in the 400m hurdles (Los Angeles, 1932) in a world record time of 51.7 seconds—which was not recognised under the rules at the time because he had hit a hurdle—died.
1866 The SS Great Eastern completed the laying of a transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island, Co. Kerry, and Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.