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.
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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
2011 The last British troops pulled out of South Armagh. During the period 1970–97, the IRA killed 165 members of the British security forces in the area.
1870 (Robert) Erskine Childers, Sinn Féin politician and author of The riddle of the sands (1903), born in London but raised at the maternal home, Glendalough House, Co. Wicklow, along with his cousin, Robert Childers Barton (1881–1975)
1970 The Catholic hierarchy lifted the ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
1919 William Martin Murphy (75), founder of Independent Newspapers and leader of the Employers’ Federation during the lockout of 1913–14, died.
1970 The Irish Catholic hierarchy lifted its ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
1876 The Battle of Little Big Horn, Montana, USA. Of Custer’s 604-strong 7th Cavalry, some 128 were of Irish birth, representing 29 of the 32 counties. Half of the 215 men who died with him that day were Irish.