Nick Maxwell

1693 Patrick Sarsfield, earl of Lucan, died of fever aggravated by injuries sustained four days earlier whilst fighting under the flag of France at the Battle of Landen. 1803 Robert Emmet’s rebellion in Dublin. 1885 Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States (1869–77), whose maternal great-grandfather emigrated from Dergina, Ballygawley, Co. Tyrone, in 1738, died. … Read more

1873 James Cousins, writer and poet who taught at the Theosophical College in Madanapalle for over twenty years and latterly worked for the Indian government as an adviser on the arts, born in Belfast. He established the first public art galleries in India in Mysore and Travancore. 1946 The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, British … Read more

1920 ‘Protestant and unionist’ workers at Workman and Clarke’s shipyard in Belfast, incited by unionist politicians, resolved to drive out ‘disloyal workers’—Sinn Féiners and socialists. In three days of violence seven Catholics and six Protestants were killed. 1972 ‘Bloody Friday’ in Belfast. Nine people, including two British soldiers, were killed and a further 130 were … Read more

2011 ‘The Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism—the narcissism—that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day. The rape and torture of children were downplayed or “managed” to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and “reputation”’—Taoiseach Enda Kenny, speaking at the opening of a debate on the Cloyne Report … Read more

1969 Senator Edward Kennedy, returning from a party, drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, causing the death of his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne. His conviction for leaving the scene of an accident was to dog his subsequent political career. 1969 US Senator Edward Kennedy’s car careered off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, … Read more