Nick Maxwell

1894 Robert Halpin (57), master mariner, died. Going to sea at the age of ten, Halpin served his apprenticeship on a coal boat, and afterwards joined a barque sailing in the North Atlantic, reaching the rank of third mate by the age of seventeen. After nine years under sail, he transferred to steam and got … Read more

1919 The Paris Peace Conference, better known as the Versailles Peace Conference, at which the victorious Allied Powers set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, began. 1979 Leo Varadkar, TD for Dublin West since 2007 and taoiseach since June 2017, born in Dublin. 1987 T. Desmond Wilson, professor of modern history at UCD … Read more

1971 Official Sinn Féin voted to end their abstentionist policy from Dáil Éireann, Stormont and Westminster. 1820 Anne Brontë, novelist, the youngest of the literary sisters, author notably of Agnes Grey (1847) and The tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), born in Thornton, Yorkshire. 1992 Eight workers were killed when the IRA detonated a 500lb roadside bomb as … Read more

1922 Michael Collins, as chairman of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland, formally accepted the transfer of power from the British authorities at Dublin Castle. 1822 Thomas Clarke Luby, revolutionary, author, journalist and founding member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (1858), born in Dublin, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman. 1991 Operation Desert … Read more

1872 John King (33), Tyrone-born soldier and the only survivor of the four men of the Burke and Wills expedition (1860–1), the first to cross Australia from south to north, died of tuberculosis. 1988 Seán MacBride (83), lawyer, government minister and international politician, died. 1988 Seán MacBride (83), lawyer, revolutionary and international jurist who was … Read more