1972 BEA Flight 548, en route from London Heathrow to Brussels, crashed near Staines, Middlesex, soon after take-off, killing all 118 people on board, including twelve leading Irish businessmen.
1922 An IRA convention at the Mansion House, Dublin, concluded with a split on the issue of immediate resumption of an IRA offensive against the British Army. The defeated minority, which included three-quarters of the Executive, retired to the Four Courts.
1769 Robert Stewart, Lord Castlereagh, chief secretary for Ireland who secured the passage of the Act of Union (1800) and played a crucial role at the Congress of Vienna (1815), born in Dublin.
1994 The Loughinisland, Co. Down, massacre. Six local men were killed when UVF gunmen attacked a public house in the village.
1992In a referendum in the Republic of Ireland over 69% voted to accept the Maastricht Treaty.
1936 Taoiseach Éamon de Valera declared the IRA to be an illegal organisation.
1928 Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen (55) and his crew of five disappeared while flying on a rescue mission in the Arctic.
1814 David Moriarty, bishop of Kerry (1856–77), born in Kilcarragh, Co. Kerry. A staunch anti-Home Ruler, he is best remembered for the vehemence of his condemnation of the Fenians—‘Eternity is not long enough nor Hell hot enough for such miscreants’.
1984 Police and miners clashed at what became known as the Battle of Orgreave in South Yorkshire during the Miners’ Strike, one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history. Over 90 miners were subsequently charged with riot and violent disorder but were later acquitted owing to ‘unreliable’ police evidence.
