Nick Maxwell

1871 The Gaiety Theatre in Dublin opened with a performance of Goldsmith’s She stoops to conquer. 1869 Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, imprisoned Fenian, was returned as MP in a County Tipperary by-election but was disqualified as a convicted felon. 1812 John Dunlap, printer and publisher, who founded the first American daily newspaper, the Pennsylvania Packet (1771), later … Read more

2009 The Murphy Report into sexual abuse in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin was published. The report concluded that the church had prioritised its own reputation over all other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims. 1791 The first convicts transported directly from Ireland to Australia, from Cork on the Queen, arrived … Read more

1921 In Belfast, 27 people were killed after a week of sectarian fighting. By the end of the year the death-toll in the city for the previous twelve months was 109. 1969 The Electoral Law Act (NI) reduced the voting age to eighteen and extended the local government franchise to all parliamentary electors. 1913 At … Read more

1996 Mícheal Ó Hehir (76), sports commentator, journalist and ‘the voice of Gaelic games’, died. 1940 James Craig, Lord Craigavon, prime minister of Northern Ireland since 1921 and the architect of the Orange state, died. 1926 The first Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis was held. 1922 Erskine Childers (52), anti-Treaty republican, arrested a fortnight earlier and … Read more

1974 Cornelius Ryan, Dublin-born war correspondent and author of the best-selling The longest day (1959), an account of the D-Day landings of 1944, died. 1941 Derek Mahon, leading Irish lyric poet, born in Belfast of Protestant working-class parents (70 today). 1966 Seán T. (Thomas) Ó Ceallaigh/O’Kelly (84), president of Ireland (1945–59), died. 1910 The American … Read more