September 23

  • 1869 Mary Mallon, also known as ‘Typhoid Mary’, who is believed to have infected over 50 people (three of whom died) over the course of her career as a cook in New York, born in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone.
  • 1937 Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, disaster. Ten ‘tattie-hokers’ (potato-pickers) from Achill Island, Co. Mayo, were burned to death when their bothy (farm building) caught fire as they slept.
  • 1911 ‘With the help of God, you and I joined together . . . will yet defeat the most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people . . . We must be prepared . . . the morning Home Rule passes, ourselves to become responsible for the government of the Protestant province of Ulster’—Sir Edward Carson in an address to 50,000 members of the Orange Order and Unionist Clubs at Craigavon House, three weeks after the passing of the Parliament Act.
  • 1966 Death of Leo Burdock, IRA veteran and scion of the fish-and-chip shop dynasty whose most famous and long-lived premises is still in business on Dublin’s Werburgh Street.