Flag Day

1718 – Birth of portrait painter, Nathaniel Hone, in Dublin.

1764 – Birth of Thomas Emmet, nationalist and brother of Robert Emmet, in Dublin.

1857 – William Thompson, journalist, is born in Derry.

1885 – Birth of athlete, Con Walsh, in Carriganimma, He represented Canada at the 1908 Summer Olympics. He won a bronze medal in the hammer throw, finishing third behind fellow Irishmen John Flanagan and Matt McGrath, both of whom represented the United States.

1903 – Death of impressionist landscape and portrait painter, Walter Frederick Osborne. Born in Rathmines, Dublin, most of his paintings featured women, children, and the elderly as well as rural scenes.

1906 – Son of an Irish father, William Joyce aka ‘Lord Haw-Haw’; fascist and broadcaster of Nazi propaganda in World War II was born in Brooklyn, New York.

1912 – Death of novelist, historian and politician, Justin McCarthy.

1914 – Large supply of guns from Germany were landed at Larne for the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

1916 – On Easter Monday, the Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army seized the General Post Office (GPO) and several key buildings in Dublin and demanded Irish sovereignty. Pádraig Pearse read out the Proclamation of Independence after his men had seized the GPO.

1916 – The first victim of the Easter Rising, Margaret Keogh, was shot and killed by British soldiers while rushing to attend to patients and the wounded at the South Dublin Union (now the site of St James’s Hospital).

1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for the ice-trapped ship Endurance.

1920 – The IRA shot and killed a Dublin Metropolitan Police sergeant in Clonakilty, Co Cork.

1922 – A general strike took place, called by the Labour Party (and supported by 75,000 workers) against the prospect of civil war.

1923 – Free State troops took a republican prisoner, Daniel Murphy, to Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry, where five National Army troops had been killed on 6 March and shot him dead.

1927 – Birth of Bishop Eamon Casey, in Co Kerry.

1945 – Birth of singer and entertainer, Johnny McEvoy, in Banagher, Co Offaly.

1948 – Birth of writer, Clare Boylan, in Dublin.

1951 – Birth of politician, Enda Kenny, in Co Mayo. He has been leader of Fine Gael since 2002 and Taoiseach since March 2011. He has also been Ireland’s Minister for Defence since 6 May 2016. He was a two-term Vice-President of the European People’s Party and was Ireland’s Minister for Tourism and Trade from 1994 to 1997.

1961 – Birth of Laura Magahy, head of development of Temple Bar, Dublin.

1968 – Birth of actor, Aidan Gillen, in Drumcondra, Dublin. He is best known for portraying Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish in the HBO series Game of Thrones, Tommy Carcetti in the HBO series The Wire, CIA operative Bill Wilson in The Dark Knight Rises, Stuart Alan Jones in the Channel 4 series Queer as Folk, and John Boy in the RTÉ Television series Love/Hate. He also hosted seasons 10 through 13 of Other Voices. Gillen has won two Irish Film and Television Awards and has been nominated for a British Academy Television Award, a British Independent Film Award, and a Tony Award.

1969 – There was an explosion at a water pipeline between Lough Neagh and Belfast. It was later established that the bomb was planted by Loyalists who were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV).

1993 – Bishopsgate bombing – after a telephoned warning, the PIRA exploded a large bomb at Bishopsgate, London. It killed one civilian, wounded thirty others, and caused an estimated £350 million in damage (some reported estimates were as high as £1,000 million).

1996 – The IRA planted two bombs at Hammersmith Bridge, London. The bombs contained 30 pounds of Semtex and although the detonators went off the main charges failed to explode. There were no injuries and no damage was caused.

1998 – The Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Freedom Fighters’ Inner Council – the North’s largest loyalist paramilitary group – backed the Stormont Agreement, saying it secured the state’s place within the United Kingdom.

1998 – The second-largest ever construction project in the history of the State, a £120m drainage system designed to make Cork’s River Lee and Lough Mahon pollution free in four years time and create up to 500 jobs during construction, was announced.

2002 – The IRA was accused of being part of a global terrorist network after a US inquiry claimed the group had sent up to 15 members to Colombia to train Marxist rebels.

2003 – The United States backed British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s demand that the IRA should clarify its commitment to the peace process.

2004 – No. 1 ranked quizzer in the world, Pat Gibson, became the fourth contestant to win the £1m jackpot on the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Born in Co Galway, he is a multiple world champion in quizzing and one of the world’s most successful quiz players.

Photo by 1916 Easter Revolution in Colour

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