Today in Irish History:

1873 - A three-day conference began in Dublin to establish the "Home Rule League". It was to be the predecessor of Isaac Butt's Home Government Association.

1922 - The court martial of Erskine Childers begins

1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept his Nobel Prize money of £7,000. He said: "I can forgive Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."

1989 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a landmine killing three British Army soldiers near Mayobridge, County Down. The soldiers were members of the parachute regime

1997 - There were riots in Lurgan and Armagh following the arrest of Colin Duffy, then a prominent Republican based in Lurgan. [Duffy had been charged with assault following a fracas involving Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers in the town.]

1999 - US senator George Mitchell makes his last report into the Good Friday Agreement; he urges the IRA to set its representative to discuss disarmament on the same day the new power-sharing government is formed.  ¶ 12:38 a.m.