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December 18

Published in On this Day listing

1980 The first H-Block hunger strike for the return of political status ended following the intervention of Cardinal Ó Fiaich.
1919 In the House of Commons, Winston Churchill placed the number of troops currently in Ireland at 43,000, costing the British taxpayer £860,000 per month.
1983 Six people, including two policemen, were killed when an IRA bomb exploded outside Harrod’s department store in London at lunchtime, when the streets were crowded with Christmas shoppers.

On this Day

1968 In what became known as the ‘rivers of blood’ speech, Enoch Powell MP strongly criticised mass immigration, especially Commonwealth immigration to the UK, and the then proposed Race Relations Act.
1954 Michael Manning (25), a carter from Groody, Limerick city, was hanged in Mountjoy Jail for the murder of an elderly nurse. He was the last person to be judicially executed in the Republic of Ireland. The last judicial execution in Northern Ireland took place seven years later, in December 1961, when Robert McGladdery (26) from Newry was hanged for the murder of a local woman.
1912 Abraham ‘Bram’ Stoker (65), author, notably of Dracula (1897), died.
1954 Michael Manning (25), a carter from Limerick, was hanged in Mountjoy prison for the murder of an elderly nurse. He was the last man to be judicially executed in the Republic of Ireland.