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1852 Nevill Coghill was born on this day in 1852 in Dublin. Coghill was awarded the Victoria Cross after his death in the Battle of Isandhlwana, the first major conflict of the Anglo-Zulu war. Coghill heroically attempted to save the life of one of his comrades, only for both to be slaughtered by the enemy.
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1915 Ewan MacColl, was born on this day in 1915. He was an English folk singer who wrote the popular folk tune, Dirty Old Town.
Click here to read more Dirty Old Town
In 1957, he wrote “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. Roberta Flack had an international hit with the song in 1972. He wrote it as a song for Peggy Seeger to sing – they later married.
He also worked with Irish songwriter Dominic Behan in his career, and his daughter Kirsty MacColl provided the vocals for the female character in the Pogues’ Christmas song, Fairytale of New York.
Roberta Flack with The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face from 1969.
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1966 Happy birthday to Donal MacIntyre, born in Dublin on this day in 1966. MacIntyre has produced some shocking documentaries for the BBC. He is an investigative journalist, and in his career has gone undercover to expose various British gangsters and football hooligans.
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1992 Happy birthday to Irish actor, Dean McCarthy, born in Dublin on this day in 1992. McCarthy has appeared on the West End stage as the lead in Billy Elliot the Musical.
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1999 The Irish government came under heavy criticism on this day in 1999. There were rumours of a scandal involving Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern keeping quiet about a £50,000 ‘donation’ being made to European Commissioner Pádraig Flynn.
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2001 On this day in 2001, thousands of mourners gathered on the streets of Ballinamallard, County Fermanagh for the funeral of Irish rally driver Bertie Fisher and his two children, after they were killed in a helicopter crash.
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