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Mary MacSwiney, Irish patriot, dies
Mary MacSwiney, Irish patriot, dies Mary MacSwiney (27 March 1872 – 8 March 1942) was an Irish republican activist and politician, as well as a teacher. Born in London to an Irish father and English mother, she returned to Ireland with her family at the age of six and was educated at St Angela’s School in Cork. …

Paddy Devlin, socialist politician, is born in Belfast
Paddy Devlin, socialist politician, is born in Belfast Patrick Joseph “Paddy” Devlin (8 March 1925 – 15 August 1999) was an Irish socialist, labour and civil rights activist and writer. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a former Stormont MP, and a member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive. …

Sir James Comyn, lawyer, is born in Dublin
Sir James Comyn, lawyer, is born in Dublin Sir James Peter Comyn (8 March 1921 – 5 January 1997) was an Irish-born barrister and English High Court judge. The scion of a prominent Nationalist legal family, Comyn was sent to England after they fell out with Éamon de Valera. Considered by many to be “the finest all-round advocate at the English bar”, Comyn was appointed to the High Court of Justice in 1978, serving on the bench until his retirement in 1985. …

Francis MacManus, novelist, is born
Francis MacManus, novelist, is born Francis MacManus (8 March 1909 – 27 November 1965) was an Irish novelist and broadcaster. …

Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Irelander, is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Irelander, is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, KCMG, PC (12 April 1816 – 9 February 1903), was an Irish poet and journalist (editor of The Nation), Young Irelander and tenant-rights activist. After emigrating to Australia in 1856 he entered the politics of Victoria on a platform of land reform, and in 1871–1872 served as the colony’s 8th Premier. …

Novelist Eric Linklater, son of an Orkney master mariner, born in Wales.
Novelist Eric Linklater, son of an Orkney master mariner, born in Wales. Eric Robert Russell Linklater CBE (8 March 1899 – 7 November 1974) was a Welsh-born Scottish poet, fiction writer, military historian, and travel writer. For The Wind on the Moon, a children’s fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year’s best children’s book by a British subject. …

Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows born in Edinburgh
Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows born in Edinburgh Kenneth Grahame (8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for The Wind in the Willows (1908), a classic of children’s literature, as well as The Reluctant Dragon. Both books were later adapted for stage and film, of which A. A. Milne’s Toad of Toad Hall, based on part of The Wind in the Willows, was the first. …

Tom Horan, Australian cricketer, is born
Tom Horan, Australian cricketer, is born Thomas Patrick Horan (8 March 1854 – 16 April 1916) was an Australian cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia, and later became an esteemed cricket journalist under the pen name “Felix”. The first of only two players born in Ireland to play Test cricket for Australia, Horan was the leading batsman in the colony of Victoria during the pioneering years of international cricket. …

William Crotty, outlaw of the Comeragh mountains, is tried in Waterford
William Crotty, outlaw of the Comeragh mountains, is tried in Waterford William Crotty (“Crotty the Robber”) (1712–42) was a highwayman who was hanged in Waterford in 1742. Several of his hideouts in the Comeragh Mountains are named after him. …

William III dies when his horse stumbles on a molehill
William III dies when his horse stumbles on a molehill William III (William Henry; Dutch: Willem Hendrik; 4 November 1650 – 8 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. …