Birth of William Thomas Cosgrave

Birth in Dublin of William Thomas Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State

Five people drown in Derrybeg, Co. Donegal when a chapel is flooded during Mass

William Thomas Cosgrave, Irish statesman and founding leader of the Irish Free State, is born in Dublin on June 6, 1880. A member of Sinn Féin, he participated in the 1916 Easter Rising and was sentenced to life imprisonment, though he was released in 1917 under a general amnesty.

Elected as an MP in the 1918 general election, Cosgrave refused to take his seat at Westminster, joining the revolutionary First Dáil Éireann instead. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he became President of the Executive Council (1922–1932), effectively serving as prime minister during the formative years of the Irish Free State.

He is the father of Liam Cosgrave, who would later serve as Taoiseach in the 1970s, making the Cosgraves one of the few father-son pairs to lead Irish governments.