October 18
Published in On this Day listing- 1970 Máirtín Ó Cadhain (63), perhaps the greatest modern writer in the Irish language, whose novel Cré na Cille (1949) was chosen by UNESCO for translation into several European languages, died.
- 1989 The ‘Guildford Four’—Patrick Armstrong, Gerard Conlon, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson—were released from prison, having served fifteen years on the strength of forced confessions for IRA bombings in England.
- 1976 ‘It was amazing when the president [Cearbhall Ó Dalaigh] sent the Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court … In my opinion he is a thundering disgrace’—Patrick Donegan, minister for defence, in a speech at Columb Barracks, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.
- 1970 Máirtín Ó Cadhain, academic, language activist and writer, notably of Cré na Cille (1949), died.
- 1861 William Sherman Crawford, landlord and politician who founded the Ulster Tenant Right Association (1846), which became the Tenant League of Ireland in 1850, died.
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