1739 – Birth of Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden and Lord Chief Justice in Forenaghts, Co Kildare.

1787 – Birth of Mary Aikenhead in Daunt’s Square off Grand Parade, Cork She is the founder of the Irish Sisters of Charity and St. Vincent’s Hospital Dublin.

1793 – Hugh Cane, MP for Tallow, dies from a fall down stairs.

1900 – Birth of badminton player, Frank Devlin, in Dublin. Devlin is the second most successful player ever in the All England Open Badminton Championships with 18 titles between 1925 and 1931, including three triple championships in 1926, 1927 and 1929. He also won four Irish Championships.

1916 – James Connolly vanished for a three day meeting with the IRB military council where they agreed upon joint plans for an insurrection on Easter Sunday. At this point, Connolly was co-opted on to the Military Council of the IRB.

1923 – Republican fighters derail the railway line on the bridge near Ardfert, Co Kerry. The train crashes, killing its two drivers.

1946 – Death of politician, Pádraic Ó Máille. Born in Kilmilkin, Co Galway, he was a founder member of Sinn Féin and of the Gaelic League in Galway. He was a member of the Irish Volunteers from 1917 to 1921. He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for Galway Connemara at the 1918 general election. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD for Galway at the 1922 general election, and was elected as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Galway at the 1923 general election. In the subsequent Irish Civil War, he was targeted for assassination by anti-Treaty forces and was shot and badly wounded in Dublin in December 1922. His fellow TD, Sean Hales was killed in the incident.

1949 – Birth of snooker player and world champion, Dennis Taylor, in Coalisland, Co Tyrone.

1961 – Birth of Eoghan Corry in Dublin. He is an Irish Journalist and author celebrated as the most travelled man in Ireland averaging over 30 countries a year. Since 2002 he has edited Ireland’s biggest circulation travel publication, Travel Extra. A former sportswriter and sports editor he has written books on sports history, and founding story-editor of the Gaelic Athletic Association Museum at Croke Park, Dublin.

1963 – Death of deaf dramatist, short story writer, and writer for radio, Teresa Deevy. Born in Waterford city, Deevy was elected to the Irish Academy of Letters in 1954.

1973 – Death of stage, film, and television actor and singer, Max Adrian. Born in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, he was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In addition to his success as a character actor in classical drama, he was known for his work as a singer and comic actor in revue and musicals, and in one-man shows about George Bernard Shaw and Gilbert and Sullivan, and in cinema and television films.

1983 – The Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan, reveals that the previous Fianna Fáil administration was involved in tapping the phones of Journalists Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold.

1988 – Dublin writer Christopher Nolan, who cannot move or speak because of an accident at birth, wins the Whitbread Book of the Year.

1998 – The Northern peace process are close to collapse after a 52-year-old Catholic taxi driver is killed in an attack which bears all the hallmarks of the UDA/UFF.

1998 – A delegation from Sinn Féin went to Downing Street, London to have talks with Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, about the ‘Propositions of Heads of Agreement’ document. SF claimed that the document had emphasised a ‘partition solution’ to the problems of Northern Ireland at the expense of all-Ireland institutions. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) rejected SF’s assessment of the document.

2000 – More than 20,000 people gather on the streets of west Belfast in memory of IRA teenager, Tom Williams, who was hanged in 1942 for his part in the murder of an RUC man.

2003 – Disgraced celebrity chef Tim Allen moves to protect his multi-million euro family business, announcing he is ceasing all connection with the Ballymaloe Cookery School and hotel.

Photo: Inis Oírr Lighthouse, Aran Islands, Co Galway, Giuseppe Milo Photography

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