June 22

  • 1922 Sir Henry Wilson, military adviser to the government of Northern Ireland, was shot dead by the IRA in London.
  • 1921 King George V formally opened the new Northern Ireland parliament, sitting in Belfast, with an impassioned appeal for peace in Ireland. Only the Unionist MPs were in attendance.
  • 1968 Captain Patrick J. Saul (74), aviator who navigated the Southern Cross when it made a historic east–west transatlantic flight from Portmarnock to Harbour Grace, Newfoundland (1930), died.
  • 1941 Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the USSR, began with the deployment of three million troops equipped with nearly 10,000 tanks and 3,000 aircraft.
  • 1932 The 31st International Eucharistic Congress opened in Dublin.
  • 1922 Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, military adviser to the ministry of home affairs at Stormont, was assassinated outside his home in London on the orders of Michael Collins.
  • 1922 General Sir Henry Wilson, military adviser to the government of Northern Ireland, was assassinated by the IRA in London. Two Irishmen, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, were subsequently hanged for his murder.
  • 1921 King George V formally opened the new Northern Ireland parliament sitting in Belfast City Hall. The following day the IRA blew up the train carrying his cavalry escort from Belfast back to Dublin, killing four men and 80 horses.
  • 1866 Paul Cullen, archbishop of Dublin, became Ireland’s first cardinal.
  • 1923 The Education Act (NI) restructured primary and secondary education, providing for religious education as a voluntary appendage to a secular system.