May 18

  • 1922 During continued violence in Belfast, three Catholics were shot dead and three Protestants the following day. Altogether 44 Catholics and 22 Protestants met with violent deaths in the city that month.
  • 1939 The first aircraft landed on the new airfield at Rineanna, Co. Clare, later known as Shannon Airport.
  • 1960 Sir Robert McCarrison, County Armagh-born medical scientist and world authority on the nature of deficiency diseases such as goitre and cretinism, died.
  • 1928 Standish James O’Grady (81), historian and novelist, widely regarded as ‘the father of the Irish literary revival’, died.