Nick Maxwell

1972 Eight people, seven of them young girls, died when fire destroyed the offices of Noyek’s timber merchants in Parnell Street, Dublin. 1972 Eight people, seven of them young girls, died when fire destroyed the offices of Noyek’s timber merchants in Parnell Street, Dublin. 1968 Yuri Gagarin (34), Russian pilot and cosmonaut who was the … Read more

1922 An army convention held in the Mansion House, attended by 220 delegates representing 52 of the IRA’s 73 brigades, repudiated the authority of Dáil Éireann. 2000 Vladimir Putin, who had served as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for sixteen years, was elected president of Russia in succession to Boris Yeltsin. 1920 Alan Bell, a magistrate investigating … Read more

1981 The government and Dáil Éireann condemned the decision of the IRFU to send an Irish national rugby team to South Africa. 1957 The Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community (EEC). 1996 Mary Lavin, short-story writer (notably of ‘Tales from Bective Bridge’) and novelist, died. 1987 Lord Justice Gibson, of the Northern Ireland … Read more

1972 Following the resignation of the Northern Ireland prime minister, Brian Faulkner, and his cabinet over the transfer of security to Westminster, Prime Minister Edward Heath announced that the Northern Ireland government would be suspended and replaced by direct rule from Westminster, with William Whitelaw as secretary of state. 1922 Uniformed police officers broke into … Read more

1960 Sixty-nine people were killed and 189 others injured when police opened fire on a crowd of c. 5,000–7,000 protesting against pass laws outside the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville. 1920 An t-Athair Peadar Ó Laoghaire (81), scholar and author, notably of Mo scéal féin (1915), died. 1978 Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh (66), jurist and president of … Read more