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.
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Personal Histories
Personal Histories is an initiative by History Ireland,
which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish
people both in Ireland and around the world. It is hoped
to build an extensive database reflecting Irish lives,
giving them a chance to be heard, remembered and to
add their voice to the historical record.
Click Here to go to the Personal Histories page
1901 Thomas Clarke Luby, co-founder of the Fenian movement and editor of the Irish People (1863–5), died in New York.
1955 Rosa Parks, the ‘first lady of civil rights’, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for resisting bus segregation by refusing to obey a bus driver’s order that she give up her seat in the ‘coloured’ section to a white passenger after the ‘white’ section was filled.
1972 A bus driver and bus conductor were killed and over 100 others were injured when two UVF bombs exploded in Dublin city centre. Fine Gael consequently dropped their opposition to Fianna Fáil’s Offences Against the State (Amendment) Bill, then being debated in Dáil Éireann.