July 31, 1965
Cigarette advertising banned on television in Britain.
July 31, 1922
Harry Boland shot by Free Staters in Skerries; he would die three days later
July 31, 1917
Death of poet Francis Ledwidge, from Slane, Co. Meath, who is killed by a stray shell at Ypres during World War I
July 31, 1893
Founding of the Gaelic League in order to revive the use of the Irish language and foster appreciation of Irelands Celtic heritage
July 31, 1877
Minority of Home Rulers begin obstruction tactics in Commons
July 31, 1845
Caledonian Railway Company authorized to commence business.
July 31, 1838
Enactment of the Irish Poor Law
July 31, 1834
Inauguration of the first Dublin - Dun Laoghaire horse-drawn train service
July 31, 1786
Kilmarnock Edition of the poems of Robert Burns Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect first published.
July 31, 1737
Robert Adair, MP for Philipstown, dies on this date, having had one of his legs cut off above the knee for a mortification and died soon after
July 31, 1689
Robert Lundy, Governor of Derry-Londonderry, advises surrender at the approach of James’s army but is overruled and allowed to escape.
The Jacobite war broke out in 1689, when the Catholic King James II of England, was removed from the throne, by a revolution that brought his son in law, the Protestant William of Orange to power.
