April 27

  • 1822 Ulysses Simpson Grant, general in the Union army and 18th president of the United States (1869–77), born in Ohio.
  • 1521 Ferdinand Magellan (c. 40), Portuguese navigator, was killed by natives on the island of Mactan in the Philippines during the first circumnavigation of the Earth.
  • 1920 The IRA attacked the RIC station at Ballylanders, Co. Limerick. The Black and Tans terrorised Limerick city the following day.
  • 1967 The Abortion Act, making abortion legal up to 28 weeks’ gestation, came into effect in the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland.
  • 1953 Maud Gonne MacBride, revolutionary and iconic figure in nationalist mythology, died.
  • 1916 Outside Hulluch, north of Loos in northern France, the 16th (Irish) Division suffered one of the heaviest gas attacks of the First World War; 538 men died and a further 1,590 were injured.
  • 1923 Eamon de Valera offered terms for negotiation to end the Civil War, which were rejected by the Free State government.
  • 1953 Maud Gonne (86), iconic figure in Irish nationalism, died.