1920 An IRA unit led by Eoin O’Duffy and Ernie O’Malley captured the RIC barracks at Ballytrain, Co. Monaghan, and seized all its arms and ammunition.
1929 The St Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago, USA. In retaliation for a gun attack by Kerryman George ‘Bugs’ Moran’s North Side gang on his Lexington Hotel HQ the previous week, Al Capone sent gunmen to the SMC Company Garage on 2112 North Clark Street, where they murdered seven of Moran’s men. Though Moran escaped—having nicked himself shaving, he was late to arrive at the garage—the incident marked the end of his criminal ambitions.
