1970 Máirtín Ó Cadhain (63), perhaps the greatest modern writer in the Irish language, whose novel Cré na Cille (1949) was chosen by UNESCO for translation into several European languages, died.
1989 The ‘Guildford Four’—Patrick Armstrong, Gerard Conlon, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson—were released from prison, having served fifteen years on the strength of forced confessions for IRA bombings in England.
1976 ‘It was amazing when the president [Cearbhall Ó Dalaigh] sent the Emergency Powers Bill to the Supreme Court … In my opinion he is a thundering disgrace’—Patrick Donegan, minister for defence, in a speech at Columb Barracks, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.
1970 Máirtín Ó Cadhain, academic, language activist and writer, notably of Cré na Cille (1949), died.
1861 William Sherman Crawford, landlord and politician who founded the Ulster Tenant Right Association (1846), which became the Tenant League of Ireland in 1850, died.
1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV of France. Originally promulgated by Henri IV in 1598, the edict extended religious toleration to French Protestants, known as Huguenots. Its revocation prompted an exodus of Huguenots from France, and many were encouraged to settle in Ireland by the Protestant authorities here to bolster the numbers of the settler communities. Many were skilled workers and formed significant (and Francophone) urban communities in cities like Dublin.
