January 19

  • 1919 Sinn Féin members returned in the general election of December 1918 convened in the Mansion House to establish Dáil Éireann, the first parliament in Dublin since 1800. A Declaration of Independence and a ‘Message to the Free World’ were issued and a Constitution adopted.
  • 1919 A local IRA unit led by Séamus Robinson, Dan Breen and Seán Treacy ambushed and killed RIC Constables MacDonnell and O’Connell at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary, marking the beginning of the Anglo-Irish War.
  • 1917 An explosion at the Mond munitions factory in Silvertown, east London, killed 69 people and injured over 1,000, many of them women.