June 25

  • 2011 The last British troops pulled out of South Armagh. During the period 1970–97, the IRA killed 165 members of the British security forces in the area.
  • 1870 (Robert) Erskine Childers, Sinn Féin politician and author of The riddle of the sands (1903), born in London but raised at the maternal home, Glendalough House, Co. Wicklow, along with his cousin, Robert Childers Barton (1881–1975)
  • 1970 The Catholic hierarchy lifted the ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
  • 1919 William Martin Murphy (75), founder of Independent Newspapers and leader of the Employers’ Federation during the lockout of 1913–14, died.
  • 1970 The Irish Catholic hierarchy lifted its ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin.
  • 1876 The Battle of Little Big Horn, Montana, USA. Of Custer’s 604-strong 7th Cavalry, some 128 were of Irish birth, representing 29 of the 32 counties. Half of the 215 men who died with him that day were Irish.
  • 1973 Paddy Wilson (40), a senior SDLP politician, and Irene Andrews (25), a Protestant civil servant, were shot and stabbed to death in a frenzied attack by loyalist paramilitaries on a remote road in East Belfast.
  • 1973 Erskine Hamilton Childers (Fianna Fáil) was sworn in as fourth president of Ireland after defeating T.F. O’Higgins (Fine Gael) by less than 100,000 votes.