May (Beltaine)  5^th

1795 - House of Commons rejects Grattan's Catholic relief bill

1863 - Joe Coburn KOs Mike McCoole for US boxing title in 63rd round

http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/coburn.htm

1864 - Birth in Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford of Sir Henry Wilson, soldier; chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1918 to 1922; establishes British Intelligence 'Cairo Gang' in Dublin

1881 - Richard Downey (youngest ever Catholic archbishop in 1928, who reduces his weight from 18 stone to 9 stone in the 1930s) is born in Kilkenny

1916 - Irish patriot and a leader of the 1916 Easter Uprising, John MacBride, is executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol

1939 - Death of Mick the Miller, the greatest greyhound in the history of the sport

1941 - Kate O'Brien's novel The Land of Spices is banned by the Free State Board of Censors; protests will eventually lead to the setting up of an appeals procedure

1965 - Birth on Belfast of Norman Whiteside, Manchester United, Everton and Northern Ireland footballer

1981 - Bobby Sands dies at Long Kesh prison on the 66th day of his hunger strike

1999 - The remains of celebrated British actor Oliver Reed arrive in Ireland and are taken by hearse to a funeral home in the North Cork town of Buttevant, not far from his Castle McCarthy home in nearby Churchtown

1999 - Prince Charles visits Omagh and meets with relatives of those killed in the 1998 bombing and some of the young people who were injured

2003 - It is announced that almost a year after his death, two unpublished plays by John B. Keane have been discovered in his study and will be staged when his widow, Mary, decides the time is right.

1900 - Spencer Tracy is born in Milwaukee, actor (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner)

Feast Day:

St. Gibrian, Hermit in Ireland