1312 – John de Wogan ceases to be justiciar; Edmund le Botiller will act as justiciar for the present.

1761 – Richard Nugent, Lord Delvin, MP for Fore, and still a teenager, dies of wounds he received after fighting a duel with a Mr Reilly on 30 July.

1775 – Birth of Daniel O’Connell in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry. Known as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, he was a political leader in the first half of the nineteenth century. He campaigned for Catholic Emancipation – the right for Catholics to sit in the Westminster Parliament, denied for over 100 years – and Repeal of the Union between Ireland and Great Britain.

1850 – Death of poet, Edward Walsh. He was the son of a sergeant in the Cork militia, and was born in Doire, Cullen, Co Cork, where his father’s regiment had been sent for training. Many of his songs and poems appeared between the years 1832-39, and he contributed to the Nation. He went to reside in Dublin in 1843, and was befriended by Charles Gavan Duffy, who got him appointed sub-editor of the Monitor. His Irish Jacobite Poetry (1844) and his Irish Popular Songs (1847) gave unmistakable evidence of a genuine poet. Yet he was forced to fight against poverty, and, in 1848, he accepted the post of schoolmaster to the junior convicts of Spike Island.

1858 – Birth of classical scholar, Sir William Ridgeway, in Ballydermot, Co Offaly.

1894 – Birth of Iseult Lucille Germaine Gonne. She was the daughter of Maud Gonne and Lucien Millevoye, and the wife of the novelist Francis Stuart.

1920 – The Dáil orders the boycotting of Belfast unionist firms.

1922 – Anti-Treaty IRA fighters ambush a Free State provisions column at Knockeen crossroads in Kerry. One National Army officer is killed and several privates are wounded.

1927 – Birth of poet, Richard Murphy, near the Mayo-Galway border.

1971 – Birth of playwright and director, Conor McPherson, in Dublin.

1980 – The British government announced an extra public spending package of £48 million for Northern Ireland to try to alleviate the high level of unemployment in the region which stood at 14.7 per cent. This announcement came after a meeting between the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTUs) and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

1997 – Loyalist paramilitaries carried out a ‘punishment’ attack on an 18 year old man in Rathcoole, north Belfast.

1997 – A taxi driver was shot in the legs in a ‘punishment’ style attack in Grosvenor Road, Belfast. The attack was alleged to have been carried out by the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA).

1997 – A hoax bomb was sent to the office of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) on the Shankill Road. It was believed that Loyalist paramilitaries were responsible. It was believed that Loyalist paramilitaries were responsible.

1997 – There was an arson attack on an Orange Order hall near Caledon, Co Tyrone.

1997 – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam, held a meeting with President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, together with other SF representatives in Stormont.

1998 – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam, said that she believed that the “war is over”. This was said in response to Unionist demands that Sinn Féin and the IRA should state publicly that the conflict had ended.

1998 – Thomas McMahon, who had been convicted of the murder of Lord Mountbatten and three other people in 1979, was released from jail. The release drew criticism from Unionists in Northern Ireland.

1999 – The IRA issued a statement in which the organisation denied that it had been behind an attempt to smuggle arms from the USA into Ireland; the IRA “Army Council has not sanctioned any arms importation operation”. In relation to the speculation around the killing of Charles Bennett on 30 July 1999 the IRA said “there had been no breaches of the IRA cessation”.

1999 – Labour analysts at the Economic and Social Research Institute announce that the country is heading for full employment for the first time in history.

2000 – In Waterford, a team of six men, five of them former international boxers, skip their way into the Guinness Book of Records by smashing the 24 hour relay skipping record.

2000 – The first annual Witness Festival comes to a close at Fairyhouse in Co Meath.

2001 – The chairman of the International Commission on Decommissioning, General John de Chastelain, reveals that his members and an IRA representative have agreed on a method for decommissioning.

Image | Malin Mor, Co Donegal | Fiachra Mangan Photography

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