To renew a subscription please login first

October 10

Published in On this Day listing

1969 The Hunt report on policing in Northern Ireland recommended that the RUC be disarmed and the ‘B’ Specials disbanded and replaced by a new part-time force—later named the Ulster Defence Regiment.
1957 Fire broke out at the Windscale (now Sellafield) facility in Cumbria, the worst nuclear accident in British history.
1922 The Catholic hierarchy issued a joint pastoral condemning Republican resistance to the Free State—‘A republic without popular recognition behind it is a contradiction in terms’.
1918 Over 500 people, mainly soldiers, died when the RMS Leinster was sunk by German torpedoes one hour out of Dún Laoghaire.
1918 The City of Dublin Steam Packet Company’s RMS Leinster was torpedoed by a German U-boat one hour out of Kingstown/Dún Laoghaire; 501 of the 771 on board died.
1797 Thomas Drummond, engineer and under-secretary for Ireland (1835–40) who implemented a number of significant reforms, born in Scotland.

On this Day

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.