December 16

  • 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.