1366 – Lionel of Clarence, third son of Edward III and king’s lieutenant in Ireland, leaves the country.

1730 – The Danish East India Company ship, Golden Lyon, is stranded near Ballyheige, Co Kerry.

1771 – Funeral of Charles Lucas in Dublin attracts ‘the most numerous crowds of people ever known in this Kingdom’.

1791 – The Customs House (Teach an Chustaim) opens in Dublin.

1854 – The first public performance of Fion Boucicault’s Arrah-na-pogue is given at Dublin’s Theatre Royal.

1881 – Death of Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, and Irish nationalist, John MacHale. Born in Tubbernavine, Co Mayo, he laboured and wrote to secure Catholic Emancipation, legislative independence, justice for tenants and the poor, and vigorously assailed the proselytisers and the anti-Catholic anti-national system of public education. He preached regularly in Irish. McHale Park in Castlebar, Co Mayo is named after him.

1900 – George Wyndham becomes Chief Secretary for Ireland.

1901 – Birth of painter and illustrator, Norah McGuinness in Co Derry. She trained at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and at Chelsea Polytechnic in London. She helped found the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943 and became its president in 1944. She was elected an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1957. There was a retrospective of her work in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College Dublin in 1968, and in 1973 the college awarded her an honorary doctorate.

1940 – De Valera Responds to Churchill on Irish Ports.

1964 – Birth of musician, Liam Ó Maonlaí in Monkstown, Co Dublin. Best known as a member of the Hothouse Flowers, Ó Maonlaí formed the band in 1985 with his schoolmate Fiachna Ó Braonáin. He attended Scoil Lorcáin and Coláiste Eoin, which is a Gaelscoil on Dublin’s southside, although he credits his father as being the main influence for his love of the Irish language, of which he is a fluent speaker. He won an under-18 all-Ireland award for his skills on the bodhrán.

1968 – Death of Irish language educator, Margaret Mary Pearse, in Blackrock, Co Dublin.

1970 – Birth of singer and songwriter, Neil Hannon, in Co Derry. He is the creator and front man of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy, and is the band’s sole constant member. Hannon wrote the theme tunes for the sitcoms Father Ted and The IT Crowd.

1971 – The Official IRA murders Senator John Barnhill near Strabane.

1971 – An off duty British soldier was shot dead by the IRA in an attack in Lurgan, Co Armagh. Another soldier was injured in the same attack.

1974 – The IRA killed two British soldiers with a booby-trap bomb near Stewartstown, Co Tyrone.

1975 – Dr Tiede Herrema, a Dutch industrialist kidnapped by the IRA, is freed.

1976 – Crosses are planted in Belfast for lives lost in Northern Ireland since 1969, 1,662 in all.

1963 – Twelve people are arrested at a Beatles concert in the Adelphi, Dublin.

1980 – Death of Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary.

1983 – Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald travelled to England for a meeting at Chequers with British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher for the first session of the Anglo-Irish Governmental Council.

1986 – Sammy Wilson, Lord Mayor of Belfast and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor, prevented Northern Ireland Office (NIO) ministers from attending the Remembrance Day service at Belfast City Hall. This was in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA).

1990 – Death of Tom Clancy of the Clancy Brothers.

1990 – Mary Robinson is first woman to be elected President of the Republic of Ireland.

1992 – The ‘Army Council’ faction of the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation (IPLO) that was based in Dublin announced that it was disbanding. This followed an internal feud and the intervention of the IRA on 31 October 1992.

1993 – Approximately 3,000 people attended a peace rally at Greysteel, Co Derry, the site of the Greysteel Killings on 30 October 1993.

1995 – Royal assent was given to legislation which returned the remission rate on the sentences of paramilitary prisoners from 33 per cent to 50 per cent. The change in the law did not apply to life sentence prisoners.

1997 – Security Minister, Adam Ingram, gave details of ‘punishment’ attacks since 20 July 1997 during a House of Commons answer. He revealed that there had been 44 attacks during the period with 17 attributed to Republicans and 27 to Loyalists. During the first six months of the year there had bee 129 ‘punishment’ attacks.

1997 – The Garda Síochána uncovered 20 kilograms of Semtex explosive at Swords, Co Dublin, and arrested two men. This was believed to be an IRA arms cache.

1997 – The British Home Office announce that it was transferring three IRA prisoners from prisons in Britain to Long Kesh Prison. The men, Patrick Hayes, Denis Kinsella, and Vincent Wood, received prison sentences of 30, 25, and 17 years respectively, for conspiracy to cause explosions and possession of explosives.

1997 – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam, was heckled by Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) members as she addressed a plenary session of the Northern Ireland Forum.

1999 – Dublin’s Millennium pedestrian bridge is put into position over the River Liffey.

2000 – A call is made to ban Red Bull, the stimulant soft drink.

2000 – Geraldine Mills from Galway wins the Hennessy New Irish Writer award.

2001 – Dublin commuters face a 60% rise in taxi fares under recommendations by an independent assessor.

2001 – Central Bank governor Maurice O’Connell warns that Ireland has probably seen the end of the Celtic Tiger, as the number of jobs lost this year reaches 13,000.

2002 – The National Roads Authority denies protesters’ claims of victory after archaeologists resume work on the controversial Carrickmines Castle site.

2002 – Allegations that a civil servant was spying on David Trimble for the IRA plunges the Northern Ireland peace process deeper into crisis.

2013 – Death of journalist and broadcaster, John Cole. Born in Belfast, he served as deputy editor of The Guardian and The Observer from 1981 to 1992, and was the BBC’s political editor.

Image | Long Room Library, Trinity College, Dublin | Hannes Ambrosch/Flickr (Creative Commons)

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