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1973 The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act repealed the Special Powers Act, abolished the death penalty and provided for trial by one judge sitting without a jury for offences of a ‘terrorist’ nature.
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Personal Histories
Personal Histories is an initiative by History Ireland,
which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish
people both in Ireland and around the world. It is hoped
to build an extensive database reflecting Irish lives,
giving them a chance to be heard, remembered and to
add their voice to the historical record.
Click Here to go to the Personal Histories page
1806 Patrick Cotter (46), giant, died. Born in Kinsale, Co. Cork, Cotter was just eighteen when he began exhibiting himself in England as Patrick Cotter O’Brien, ‘a lineal descendant of the old puissant King Brien Boreau’. It was recorded that Cotter ‘had less imbecility of mind than the generality of overgrown persons’ but also had ‘all the weakness of body by which they are characterized. He walked with difficulty, and felt considerable pain when rising up or sitting down.’ He also feared that his remains would be taken by grave-robbers and sold to anatomists. Retiring after some five years on the road, he directed that his casket be encased with lead and interred in a grave secured with iron bars. Thus they remained undisturbed for over a century before being reinterred in a crypt at the Jesuit chapel in Trenchard Street, Bristol, where they still rest. It was established then that he was 8ft. 1in. tall at the time of his death, the first of only seventeen people in medical history to stand at a verified height of 8ft or more.
1966 The first episode of Star Trek, ‘The Man Trap’, was broadcast, in which Captain Kirk faced an alien desperate to suck the salt out of human bodies.
1812 ‘Honest John’ Martin, Young Irelander and Home Rule MP, born in Loughorne, Newry, Co. Down.
1798 The Rising in Connacht ended with the defeat of Jean Joseph Humbert’s French/Irish forces by Crown forces under Lord Lieutenant Cornwallis at the Battle of Ballinamuck, Co. Longford.
1944 The SS Empire Heritage, en route from New York to Liverpool with a cargo of war supplies, was struck by two German torpedoes some fifteen miles off Malin Head, Co. Donegal, with the loss of 113 lives.
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