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.
- 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’.
- 1982 ‘If I saw Mr Haughey buried at midnight at a cross-roads, with a stake driven through his heart—politically speaking—I should continue to wear a clove of garlic round my neck, just in case’—Conor Cruise O’Brien in the Observer.
- 1974 In the second Westminster election of that year, the Labour Party, under Harold Wilson, was returned to power with a majority of just three seats. Enoch Powell was returned as the Ulster Unionist Party MP for South Down.
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