June 26

  • 1972 Neil Blaney was expelled from Fianna Fáil for ‘conduct unbecoming a member of the organisation’.
  • 1972 The Provisional IRA announced a ceasefire.
  • 1917 The first of over one million troops of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), under General John J. ‘Black Jack’ Pershing, arrived in France.
  • 1966 Peter Ward (18), a Catholic barman, was shot dead by the UVF in Malvern Street, off Belfast’s Shankill Road. Three members of the UVF, including Augustus ‘Gusty’ Spence, were later convicted of his murder.
  • 1986 A referendum on making divorce available in the Irish Republic was defeated, with a vote of 63% against and 36% for, in a 62% turnout.
  • 1996 Veronica Guerin (35), investigative journalist with the Sunday Independent, was shot dead in Dublin.
  • 1981 The 22nd Dáil Éireann assembled. Garret Fitzgerald was elected taoiseach in a Fine Gael–Labour coalition government.
  • 1963 US President John F. Kennedy arrived in Ireland on a four-day official visit.
  • 1963 President J.F. Kennedy arrived in Ireland on a four-day visit.
  • 1824 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, mathematician, engineer and physicist who pioneered the subject of physics as an academic discipline, born in Belfast.