1750 John Philpot Curran, lawyer and politician and father of the nationalist heroine Sarah Curran (1782–1808), born in Newmarket, Co. Cork. 1914 The Buckingham Palace Conference, a last-minute attempt to break the impasse between nationalists and unionists over Home Rule, ended in failure after four days.
1693 Patrick Sarsfield, earl of Lucan, died of fever aggravated by injuries sustained four days earlier whilst fighting under the flag of France at the Battle of Landen. 1803 Robert Emmet’s rebellion in Dublin. 1885 Ulysses S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States (1869–77), whose maternal great-grandfather emigrated from Dergina, Ballygawley, Co. Tyrone, in 1738, died. … Read more
1873 James Cousins, writer and poet who taught at the Theosophical College in Madanapalle for over twenty years and latterly worked for the Indian government as an adviser on the arts, born in Belfast. He established the first public art galleries in India in Mysore and Travancore. 1946 The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, British … Read more
1920 ‘Protestant and unionist’ workers at Workman and Clarke’s shipyard in Belfast, incited by unionist politicians, resolved to drive out ‘disloyal workers’—Sinn Féiners and socialists. In three days of violence seven Catholics and six Protestants were killed. 1972 ‘Bloody Friday’ in Belfast. Nine people, including two British soldiers, were killed and a further 130 were … Read more
2011 ‘The Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism—the narcissism—that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day. The rape and torture of children were downplayed or “managed” to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and “reputation”’—Taoiseach Enda Kenny, speaking at the opening of a debate on the Cloyne Report … Read more