June 07

  • 1921 Patrick Maher and Ned Foley were executed for the killing of two policemen during the rescue of Seán Hogan at Knocklong railway station in May 1919. They were the last to be executed prior to the Truce.
  • 1970 Dr Owen Sheehy-Skeffington (61), humanist and academic, died.
  • 1917 The start of the Battle of Messines Ridge in West Flanders, in which men from the mainly nationalist 16th (Irish) Division and the unionist 36th (Ulster) Division successfully cleared German forces from the high ground around Yprés.
  • 1917 Captain Willie Redmond (56), MP for East Clare since 1891, younger brother of Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond, was fatally wounded.
  • 1996 Detective-Garda Jerry McCabe was shot dead in Adare, Co. Limerick, during the attempted robbery of a post office van by the IRA.
  • 1910 Sir William Francis Butler, Tipperary-born lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer of adventure stories and latterly a supporter of the Gaelic League and Home Rule, died.
  • 1861 Patrick Bronte, clergyman and poet, died, having outlived his seven children, including the literary sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne.
  • 1924 William Pirrie, shipbuilder and businessman who was chairman of Harland and Wolff from 1895, died.
  • 2004 Mary Holland (68), acclaimed Northern Ireland correspondent for the Irish Times, died.