Nick Maxwell

2011 The Cloyne Report, investigating allegations against eighteen priests in the diocese of Cloyne between 1996 and 2009, was published. It found that Bishop John Magee had ignored church guidelines requiring all suspected molestation cases to be reported to Gardaí. It also found that the Vatican had encouraged the concealment. 1969 In Dungiven, Co. Derry, … Read more

1970 Over 1,000 refugees from Northern Ireland arrived in the Republic during the preceding 48 hours. 1949 Douglas Hyde (89), scholar and first president of Ireland (1938–45), died. 1989 Fianna Fáil entered its first coalition when Charles J. Haughey was elected taoiseach with the support of the Progressive Democrats. 1969 Serious rioting broke out in … Read more

1792 The Belfast Harp Festival, a three-day event, opened in the Exchange Rooms. Perhaps the first attempt in Ireland to actively rejuvenate Gaelic culture occurred in Presbyterian Belfast, then known as the ‘Athens of the North’, a century before the Irish Literary Revival. Organised by a committee chaired by Dr James MacDonnell, a lover of … Read more

1921 On the eve of the Truce, four off-duty British soldiers, including two from the South Staffordshire Regiment, which had been involved in several reprisal killings in the preceding weeks, were spotted by the IRA, arrested and executed without the sanction of a senior IRA officer, in Ellis Quarry, Cork. 1927 Kevin O’Higgins (35), vice-president … Read more

1921 The IRA ambushed an RIC/USC patrol in Raglan Street, West Belfast, killing one RIC officer. During a cycle of sectarian violence over the following 24 hours, some 22 lives were lost, including thirteen Catholic civilians and six Protestant civilians. 1669 Oliver Plunkett appointed archbishop of Armagh. 1917 The battleship HMS Vanguard, anchored in Scapa … Read more