July 25

  • 1918 Cork-born Major Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock (31), one of the most celebrated fighter pilots of the RFC (Royal Flying Corps), with 73 credited enemy ‘kills’ in fourteen months, was shot down and killed by enemy fire.
  • 1917 The Irish Convention, an attempt to secure a final settlement to the Home Rule question, met at Trinity College, Dublin, under the chairmanship of Sir Horace Plunkett.
  • 1878 Schoolteacher Michael McCabe, his wife and two other teachers along with fourteen pupils aged between six and twelve were drowned when their boat, recently built by McCabe, sank on Lough Sillan, Co. Cavan, shortly after leaving the shore.
  • 1973 The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act repealed the Special Powers Act, abolished the death penalty and provided for trial by one judge sitting without a jury for offences of a ‘terrorist’ nature.