Nick Maxwell It is 2016, which means that it is the centenary of the Easter Rising. It is also the centenary of a lot of the things, but from an Irish perspective the Rising will dominate the first half of the year. The official state programme got underway in Dublin Castle on New Years Day; watch the … Read more
1920 Nancy Astor, Unionist (now Conservative) MP, became the first woman to speak in Britain’s House of Commons. 1969 General election in Northern Ireland. Unionists won 36 seats, of which 24 were pro-Terence O’Neill and twelve against. O’Neill himself had a narrow victory over Ian Paisley, standing as a ‘Protestant Unionist’. John Hume defeated Nationalist … Read more
1916 The British Military Service Act introduced conscription, initially for single men aged 18–41, with various exemptions. An attempt over two years later to extend it to Ireland was dropped in the face of massive nationalist opposition. 1973 Under the terms of the Paris Accords, a ceasefire agreement was signed by all the contending parties … Read more
1816 John O’Mahoney, founder of American Fenianism and scholar who translated Geoffrey Keating’s Foras feasa ar Éirinn, born in Kilbeheny, Co. Limerick. 1923 Senator Oliver St John Gogarty escaped capture by republicans by swimming the Liffey. He presented two swans to the river in gratitude.
January 03/1946 William Joyce (39), Nazi propagandist known as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’, was hanged for treason in Wandsworth Jail. 05/1976 John A. Costello (84), barrister, attorney general of Ireland (1926–32) and taoiseach (1948–51, 1954–7), died. 06/1066 Harold II (Godwinson) was crowned king of England in succession to Edward the Confessor. He was the last Anglo-Saxon king … Read more