March 15

  • 1922 Eamon de Valera founded Cumann na Poblachta, supported principally by opponents of the Treaty.
  • 1917 Czar Nicholas abdicated.
  • 1767 Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States (1829–1837), born in the Scots-Irish community of Waxhaws district, South Carolina, two years after his family arrived from Ireland.
  • 1999 Rosemary Nelson, human rights solicitor, was killed when a loyalist bomb exploded under her car near her home in Lurgan, Co. Armagh.
  • 1970 The Communist Parties of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland united to form the Communist Party of Ireland, with Michael O’Riordan as general secretary.
  • 1895 ‘The Tipperary witchcraft case’. In the presence of neighbours and relatives, Bridget Cleary (26) was killed in her own home at Ballyvadlea, Drangan, South Tipperary, by her husband, Michael. He was convinced that she was not his real wife but a ‘changeling’.