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September 12

Published in On this Day listing

1980 The Republic of Ireland and the People’s Republic of China exchanged ambassadors for the first time, with John Campbell taking up his post in Peking and Madame Gong Pusheng taking up residence in Dublin.
1969 The Cameron Commission report placed the blame for clashes between loyalists and supporters of NICRA and People’s Democracy over the previous year on the discriminatory policies of the Stormont regime and the RUC.
1912 Father Matthew Russell (78), founder-editor of Catholic Ireland (later Irish Monthly) from 1873, died.
1867 The Irish Constabulary was granted the prefix ‘Royal’—Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)—in recognition of its role in suppressing the Fenian Rising in March of that year.
1814 Major-General Robert Ross, from Rostrevor, Co. Down, who famously helped himself to President Madison’s dinner before torching the White House some weeks earlier, was killed in a skirmish with American militia at North Point.
1997 President Mary Robinson, approaching the end of her one term in office, resigned to take up the role of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

On this Day

1933 The eighth Dáil Éireann assembled: Eamon de Valera formed his second government, with a one-seat majority.
1929 James Connell, County Meath-born Fenian, Land Leaguer and writer of the British Labour Party anthem The Red Flag, died.
1926 The Plough and the Stars by Seán O’Casey opened in the Abbey Theatre. During the fourth performance there was a full-scale riot when the audience protested at what they perceived to be a slanderous distortion of historical events.
1912 The British home secretary, Winston Churchill, shared the platform with John Redmond at a Home Rule meeting in Celtic Park, Belfast. The organisers had been refused the use of the Ulster Hall, where Churchill’s father, a quarter of a century earlier, had warned that Home Rule could come upon them ‘as a thief in the night’.