Nick Maxwell

1922 Eamon de Valera founded Cumann na Poblachta, supported principally by opponents of the Treaty. 1917 Czar Nicholas abdicated. 1767 Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States (1829–1837), born in the Scots-Irish community of Waxhaws district, South Carolina, two years after his family arrived from Ireland. 1999 Rosemary Nelson, human rights solicitor, was killed … Read more

1991 The Birmingham Six—John Walker, Paddy Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter and Billy Power—were released after serving sixteen years in prison on fabricated evidence for the bombing of two public houses in Birmingham by the IRA in November 1974. 1973 The 20th Dáil assembled. Liam Cosgrave (Fine Gael) was elected taoiseach in a … Read more

1854 Harriet Smithson (53), actress and the first Madame Berlioz, died in Montmartre, Paris. In 1827, after regular appearances in Dublin’s Crow Street Theatre and London’s Drury Lane, Smithson, from Ennis, Co. Clare, took Paris by storm on her début in the role of a passionate Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Notables in the audience such … Read more

2001 The first case of foot-and-mouth disease in the Republic of Ireland in 60 years was confirmed in a flock of sheep on a farm in Jenkinstown, Co. Louth. 1947 In a speech to Congress, President Harry S. Truman enunciated what became known as the ‘Truman Doctrine’—US support for nations threatened by Soviet expansionism. 1917 … Read more

1921 Crown forces ambushed an IRA flying column at Selton Hill, Co. Leitrim, killing six, including Seán Connolly, their commander and GHQ staff officer. 2004 Groups inspired by al-Qaeda planted bombs on four morning rush-hour commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and injuring 1,800. 1812 William Wallace, violinist and composer, born in Waterford, the … Read more