1650 – Edward Parry, Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe, dies in Dublin from the plague.

1680 – Death of Vice-Admiral Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory, KG, PC, PC(I). He was the eldest son of the James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde and Lady Elizabeth Preston, and an Irish politician born at Kilkenny Castle.

1715 – Birth of Nahum Tate the first Irish-born poet laureate of England. Playwright and hymn writer, his best known work is While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.

1761 – Birth of Henry FitzGerald, diplomat, soldier and brother of Lord Edward FitzGerald.

1761 – Richard Nugent, MP for Fore and still a teenager, fights a duel with a Mr. Reilly and dies of his wounds a week later.

1829 – Following the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act that allowed Catholics become Members of Parliament, Daniel O’Connell is returned unopposed as MP for Clare. O’Connell was a hugely popular figure at the time as indeed was Dublin born Prime Minister Duke of Wellington. King George IV complained “‘O’Connell! God damn the scoundrel.’ Oh, the duke of Wellington is king of England, O’Connell is king of Ireland and I suppose I am only considered as dean of Windsor’. Daniel O’Connell originally won a by-election in County Clare in 1828 defeating William Vesey Fitzgerald, but was not allowed to take his seat refusing to swear an Oath of Supremacy that was incompatible with his Catholic faith.

1862 – Death of Eugene O’Curry, influential music collector.

1863 – Birth of Henry Ford, son of William and Mary Ford who crossed the Atlantic from Ireland by steerage. Ford changed the entire world through his revolutionary assembly-line manufacture of motor cars.

1885 – Birth of John Jules Barrish, an Irish writer and philosopher. Born in Cork, he moved across Ireland for the main part of his life, only to return to Cork on his late years and died there.

1919 – The first assassination authorised by Michael Collins – Detective Sergeant the Dog Smith was shot by The Squad.

1920 – The IRA East Limerick column, including Waterford IRA officer George Lennon, ambushed a British Army cycling patrol of 6 men at Tankardstown on the Bruree to Kilmallock road. One soldier was killed.

1920 – IRA man Paddy Daly shot and killed Frank Brooke, the director of Great Southern and Eastern Railway in his office in Dublin. Brooke was a member of the British military’s Advisory Council.

1922 – Free State troops take Bruree, Co Limerick. The Dublin Guard, supported by artillery, attacks the village for five hours before the Anti-Treaty IRA retreats. At least 13 Free State soldiers and nine Anti-Treaty fighters are killed in the action and more are wounded.

1922 – Two Free State soldiers are killed in a skirmish in Mayo.

1922 – Free State troops raid on a public house owned by Mrs Maria Dowling, Blackmill Street, Kilkenny. Samuel Oakes aged 17 was fatally wounded when shot by the military. Eleven young men were arrested at the scene.

1924 – Novelist and critic John Broderick is born in Athlone, Co Westmeath.

1942 – Birth of artist Charles Harper on Valentia Island, Co Kerry.

1947 – The Soviet Union blocks Ireland’s application for entry into the UN on the grounds that Ireland, being neutral, had not helped to set up the organisation. However there are strong suspicions that the Soviet Union’s real objections are because Ireland is a Catholic country and would therefore always vote against the communist bloc countries.

1971 – Red Hurley and Nevada reach no.1 in the Irish charts with ‘Sometimes’.

1976 – Four Protestant civilians died as a result of a gun attack on the Stag Inn, Belvoir, Belfast. The attack was carried out by the Republican Action Force (RAF), believed to be a covername for some members of the IRA.

1976 – A member of the UDR was killed by a booby trap bomb set by the IRA near Moneymore, Co Derry.

1978 – Tomás Ó Fiaich, Catholic Primate of Ireland, paid a visit to Republican prisoners in Long Kesh Prison. The prisoners were taking part in the ‘blanket protest’. Over 300 Republican prisoners were refusing to wear prison clothes or follow normal prison regulations in an attempt to secure a return of special category status.

1981 – The family of Paddy Quinn, then on day 47 of his hunger strike, intervened and asked for medical treatment to save his life. This series of events was to be repeated a number of times towards the end of the hunger strike as more and more familles intervened to save the hunger strikers.

1986 – John Kyle (40), a Protestant civilian, was shot dead by the IRA as he sat in McCullagh’s Bar, Greencastle, Co Tyrone. Kyle had been working as a contractor for the RUC. This killing followed threats made by the IRA on 28 July 1986.

1990 – Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Eastbourne, Ian Gow, was killed outside his home by an IRA bomb that had been planted on his car. Gow had been a vocal critic of the IRA and a close friend of British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. https://youtu.be/naRqXCe5qmo

1998 – Orange Order leaders file notice of four planned marches along the nationalist Garvaghy Road during August.

2000 – Michael Flatley’s Lord of The Dance extravaganza is staged at Belfast’s historic Stormont Castle.

2000 – It is announced that Dublin is to get a full-scale underground metro system as part of a multi-billion pound plan to tackle the capital’s crippling traffic congestion.

2002 – Soccer legend George Best enters hospital for a liver transplant.

2012 – Death of Maeve Binchy, an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker best known for her humorous take on small-town life in Ireland, her descriptive characters, her interest in human nature, and her often clever surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and her death, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the passing of Ireland’s best-loved and most recognisable writer.

Photo: Fanore Beach, Co Clare, photo credit: AirCam Ireland

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