Nick Maxwell

1920 The Government of Ireland Bill, offering a six-county ‘Northern Ireland’, was accepted by a two to one majority by the Ulster Unionist Council. Six IRA prisoners were executed in Dublin, four of whom were convicted of high treason for levying war. 1968 Donagh O’Malley (47), minister for education, collapsed and died in Sixmilebridge, Co. … Read more

1982 The 23rd Dáil Éireann assembled. Charles Haughey was elected taoiseach by a majority of seven, including independent TD Tony Gregory. Gregory’s support had been secured after Haughey signed an agreement with him, pledging development worth £91m for inner-city Dublin. 1972 Four members of the IRA were killed when a bomb they had prepared exploded … Read more

1966 A republican bomb destroyed the top half of Nelson’s Pillar in O’Connell Street, Dublin. 1869 Death of Hector Berlioz, French romantic composer, best known for his Symphonie Fantastique (1830), dedicated to Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom he later married (1833). 1917 The February Revolution in Russia led to the establishment of a provisional government and the … Read more

1972 Two women were killed and c. 70 injured, many losing limbs, when an IRA bomb exploded without warning in the crowded Abercorn Bar in Belfast’s city centre. 1804 The Castle Hill (New South Wales) convict rebellion. Under cover of darkness, over 200 convicts (mainly Irish) escaped from Castle Hill government farm, some 30km west … Read more

1985 Nine police officers were killed and 37, including 25 civilians, injured in an IRA mortar attack on Newry RUC station, the biggest single loss of police personnel during the Troubles. 2001 The Northern Ireland minister for agriculture, Brid Rodgers, ordered the slaughter of sheep at a farm in Meigh, South Armagh, because of a … Read more