1967 Sir John Cockcroft (70), British physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atom with Irishman Ernest Walton (1903–95), died. 1964 Seán O’Casey (84), playwright, died. 1914 The Home Rule Act was suspended for the duration of the war. 1867 Col. Thomas J. Kelly (Head Centre of the IRB) and Capt. … Read more
1970 Dr Patrick Hillery, Minister for External Affairs, visited the Falls Road, Belfast. The visit was criticised by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, as ‘an error of judgment and a serious diplomatic discourtesy’. 1988 An explosion and resulting oil and gas fires destroyed Piper Alpha, an oil production platform in the North Sea … Read more
1864 The Royal College of Physicians, Kildare Street, Dublin, was founded. It was the first medical institution in Ireland or Britain to allow women to sit its examinations 1998 Orangemen gathered at Drumcree Church, Portadown, Co. Armagh, declaring that they would remain there until allowed to proceed with their banned march along Garvaghy Road. Over … Read more
1921 The brothers Richard (24) and Abraham Pearson (19) were executed by an IRA firing party on their farm at Coolacrease in the foothills of the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The pair had been court-martialled for firing on IRA Volunteers, who were cutting down trees on their land for the purpose of mounting a roadblock. 1690 … Read more
1921 Three British soldiers and two civilians were killed when the IRA detonated a mine in Adavoyle on the Louth/Armagh border under a train which was transporting King George’s cavalry escort, deployed in Belfast two days earlier, back to Dublin. Eighty horses were also killed. 1314 The Battle of Bannockburn, in which Robert Bruce crushed the … Read more