October 09

1967 Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (39), Argentine Marxist revolutionary, was captured and summarily executed by CIA-backed Bolivian forces. 1966 David Cameron, Conservative MP for Witney since 2001 and prime minister of the United Kingdom (2010–16), born in Marylebone, London, the son of a stockbroker. 1958 Pope Pius XII (82), head of the Catholic Church during the … Read more

September 13

1919 Detective John Hoey, who identified Seán MacDiarmada for the military in 1916, was shot dead outside police HQ in Brunswick Street, Dublin. 1819 James Hack Tuke, Quaker, best remembered for his philanthropic work in Ireland during the Great Famine, born in York. 1968 The first Merriman Summer School opened in Ennis, Co. Clare. 1916 … Read more

September 02

1666 The Great Fire of London, which destroyed 400 acres of the city but cost just nine lives, began in a bakehouse in Pudding Lane. 1022 Malachy the Great (Máel-Sechnaill), High King of Ireland since c. 980, died on Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath. 1945 Japanese representatives sign the official ‘Instrument of surrender’ on board the … Read more

On this Day

SEPTEMBER Percy Jocelyn, disgraced bishop of Clogher (1820–2), died. Thanks to his family connections—his father was the first earl of Rodin—Jocelyn rose rapidly in the Church of Ireland despite a total disinterest in pastoral responsibilities such as taking services and preaching. His fellow clerics described him as the ‘most idle of all reverend idlers’. His … Read more

Churchill and the Irishman

By Trevor White Everyone knows something about Brendan Bracken—and it’s usually wrong. He was not Winston Churchill’s son, as many people once thought. He was not Australian and he didn’t own the Financial Times, as someone recently claimed. The man himself is partly to blame for all this misinformation. Bracken was an extravagant fibber. He … Read more