1971 General Richard Mulcahy (85), revolutionary and politician, and founder-member of Fine Gael (1933), died.
1971 General Richard Mulcahy, second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in Easter Week 1916, chief-of-staff of the IRA during the War of Independence, GOC of Provisional Government military forces during the Civil War, government minister and leader of Fine Gael (1944–59), died.
1911 The Local Authorities (Ireland) (Qualification of Women) Act allowed women to become members of county and borough councils.
1965 William Somerset Maugham (91), English novelist, died.
2005 At a press conference in Dublin, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams announced that Denis Donaldson, their party’s group administrator in Stormont, had been a spy in the pay of MI5 for over twenty years.
1983 A garda and an Irish Army soldier were killed in a gun battle during an operation near Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, to free the businessman Don Tidey, who had been kidnapped by the IRA three weeks earlier.
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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
1806 Patrick Cotter (46), giant, died. Born in Kinsale, Co. Cork, Cotter was just eighteen when he began exhibiting himself in England as Patrick Cotter O’Brien, ‘a lineal descendant of the old puissant King Brien Boreau’. It was recorded that Cotter ‘had less imbecility of mind than the generality of overgrown persons’ but also had ‘all the weakness of body by which they are characterized. He walked with difficulty, and felt considerable pain when rising up or sitting down.’ He also feared that his remains would be taken by grave-robbers and sold to anatomists. Retiring after some five years on the road, he directed that his casket be encased with lead and interred in a grave secured with iron bars. Thus they remained undisturbed for over a century before being reinterred in a crypt at the Jesuit chapel in Trenchard Street, Bristol, where they still rest. It was established then that he was 8ft. 1in. tall at the time of his death, the first of only seventeen people in medical history to stand at a verified height of 8ft or more.
1966 The first episode of Star Trek, ‘The Man Trap’, was broadcast, in which Captain Kirk faced an alien desperate to suck the salt out of human bodies.
1812 ‘Honest John’ Martin, Young Irelander and Home Rule MP, born in Loughorne, Newry, Co. Down.
1798 The Rising in Connacht ended with the defeat of Jean Joseph Humbert’s French/Irish forces by Crown forces under Lord Lieutenant Cornwallis at the Battle of Ballinamuck, Co. Longford.
1944 The SS Empire Heritage, en route from New York to Liverpool with a cargo of war supplies, was struck by two German torpedoes some fifteen miles off Malin Head, Co. Donegal, with the loss of 113 lives.
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