1488 – Sir Richard Edgecombe is sent to Ireland with power to grant pardons; he lands at Kinsale on this date.

1782 – The Relief Act gives Catholics rights concerning their education.

1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Northern column remains in camp at Croghan.

1824 – Birth of Robert Nugent in Kilkeel, Co Down, who would go on to become a decorated Brigadier General in the Union forces during the American Civil War.

1828 – Birth of Australian colonial politician, Bryan O’Loghlen, in Co Clare. He was the 13th Premier of Victoria.

1846 – Birth of statesman, Charles Stewart Parnell, in Avondale, Co Wicklow.

1864 – Birth of astronomer, Charles Joly, in Tullamore, Co Offaly.

1870 – Eibhlín Bean Uí Choisdeailbh, Irish language folk-song collector is born.

1918 – Birth of Marie Kean in Dublin. She was an actress of stage and screen whose career spanned over 40 years. Kean’s leading role as the kindly matriarch, Mrs. Kennedy, in the RTÉ serial drama, The Kennedys of Castleross, made her famous throughout Ireland. She starred in the programme for the duration of its 18-year run.

1919 – The Irish Statesman, a weekly journal promoting the views of the Irish Dominion League, ran from 27 June 1919 to June 1920. It was edited by Warre B. Wells, with contributions from W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and George William Russell. The League’s manifesto was first published in the journal’s first issue. The title was revived in 1923, after the League was defunct, with the new series running till 1930. *The Irish Dominion League was an Irish political party and movement which advocated Dominion status for Ireland within the British Empire, and opposed partition of Ireland into separate southern and northern jurisdictions. It attracted modest support from middle-class Dubliners of moderate unionist and nationalist backgrounds, anxious to achieve a compromise in the face of the escalating conflict between the IRA and the British. It operated between 1919 and 1921.

1922 – The Four Courts garrison kidnaps Free State General J.J. O’Connell in retaliation for the arrest of Leo Henderson I/C Belfast Boycott. Collins gives a final ultimatum to the Four Courts garrison to surrender before they are attacked.

1951 – Birth of Mary McAleese in Belfast. She was the eighth President of Ireland; prior to becoming President she was a barrister, journalist and academic.

1970 – Battle of St Matthew’s: Following the arrest of Bernadette Devlin, there was serious rioting in Belfast involving Protestants and Catholics. During the evening groups of Loyalist rioters began to make incursions into the Catholic Short Strand enclave of east Belfast. Catholics in the area believed that they were going to be burnt out of their homes and claimed that there were no British Army troops on the streets to protect the area. Members of the IRA took up sniping positions in the grounds of St Matthew’s Catholic Church and engaged in a prolonged gun battle with the Loyalists. This was the most significant IRA operation to date. Across Belfast six people were killed of whom five were Protestants shot by the IRA. A Protestant man was mortally wounded when struck on the head by a missile. He died on 3 July 1970.

1985 – The INLA shot dead, Patrick Morrissey, a member of the Garda Síochána during an armed robbery at a post office in Ardee, Co Louth.

1987 – U2 returns to Dublin’s Croke Park for the first time in two years.

1995 – British Prime Minister, John Major, and Taoiseach John Bruton, agreed to ask European Commission officials to look at ways in which the Commission might assist with the issue of decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. Major and Bruton were attending a European Union summit at Cannes at the time.

1996 – Gardí in recovered 100lbs of home-made explosives in Clones, Co Monaghan.

1999 – David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), challenged Sinn Féin to get a pledge from the IRA to disarm by May 2000. Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator, said he could not speak on behalf of the IRA. Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), interpreted Trimble’s challenge as indicating an acceptance that the demand for prior disarmament would not be met.

2001 – The golden eagle lands in Ireland for the first time in nearly a century. Six chicks of the bird-of-prey arrive in Co Donegal from the Scottish Highlands at the start of a programme to re-introduce a species that became extinct in 1912.

2000 – More than 2,000 troops are flown into the north of Ireland to reinforce security ahead of the marching season.

2001 – Passing of former Labour deputy Michael Moynihan. The 84-year-old was a TD for Kerry South during the 1980s and early 1990s. He also served as a Minister of State at the Department of Trade, Commerce and Tourism.

2005 – Death of Frank Harte. He was a traditional Irish singer, song collector, architect and lecturer. He was born and raised in Dublin. His father who had moved from a farming background in Sligo owned ‘The Tap’ pub in Chapelizod.

2007 – Ireland elects its first black mayor; a Nigerian man who came to Ireland in 2000 to seek asylum. Forty-three-year-old Councillor Rotimi Adebari is elected the Mayor of Portlaoise Town Council by a vote of six to three and with the support of Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Independent members of the council. At a meeting attended by officials from the Nigerian, South African and the United States embassies, the new mayor is quoted as saying his election was proof that “Ireland is not just a country of a thousand welcomes, but it is a country of equal opportunity.”

2009 – It was announced that the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Red Hand Commando (RHC) had decommissioned their weapons.

2012 – Queen Elizabeth II shook hands with Sinn Féin MLA and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

Image | Ballybunion Castle, one of fifteen cliff forts on the North Kerry coast | Irish Air Corps

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