December 27

  • 1821 Jane Francesca Elgee, Lady Wilde, poet and writer, widely known by her pen-name, Speranza, and mother of Oscar Wilde (1856–1900), born in Dublin.
  • 1969 Dan Breen (75), IRA veteran, the first Fianna Fáil TD to take the oath of allegiance (April 1927), died.
  • 1997 Billy Wright (36), notorious leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, was assassinated in the Maze prison by the INLA
  • 1849 James Fintan Lalor, Young Irelander whose theories on the land question were later taken up by the Land League (1879), died.
  • 1973 Thomas Niedermayer (45), manager of the Grundig electronics factory in Dunmurry, was abducted from his Belfast home by the IRA. He died just days later in captivity.