Irish History - February 13

This day in Irish History the following occurred:

February 13
1689 - William and Mary - daughter of James II - are proclaimed king and queen jointly
1820 - Leonard McNally, lawyer and English informer, dies
1871 - Joseph Devlin, Belfast Nationalist, is born
1864 - Stephen Lucius Gwynn, writer and nationalist, is born in Dublin
1898 - Frank Aiken, revolutionary and politician from Co. Armagh, is born
1938 - Larry Cunningham, country singer, is born in Granard, Co. Offaly
1956 - Birth in Dublin of Liam Brady, former soccer international
1998 - It is announced that Irish Embassy staff in Riyadh and Tel Aviv, the Saudi and Israeli capitals, are being kitted out with special suits to protect them against nuclear, biological or chemical weapons
1998 - Ireland's electricity industry, one of the last bastions of the closed market, takes a historic step towards open competition when Enterprise Minister Mary O'Rourke inspects the site of a Finnish-owned peat-fuelled generating station in Offaly
2001 - Kosovar refugees living in Tralee and Waterford celebrate their right to become Irish citizens, almost two years after they first arrived in Ireland. A total of 140 Kosovar refugees, displaced as a result of an ethnic war in their homeland, are to be allowed live in Ireland permanently on humanitarian grounds
2002 - It is announced that John Rocha is to become the first Irish designer to receive a CBE award for his long-standing contribution to the fashion industry
2003 - Nearly10,000 people are forced to find an alternative way of getting to work in Dublin when Dart services are disrupted by a major overhead line fault.

Sources: Irish Culture and Customs,
The Celtic
League, Irish
Abroad, The Wild Geese