Ireland

Cork No. 2 Brigade, IRA, attacks and captures a military barracks in Mallow, Co. Cork. English forces later burn and sack the town

Mid-Clare Brigade, IRA, kill six policemen near Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare

Black and Tans raid Balbriggan, Co. Dublin

Kevin Barry is captured

Birth of Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel, born in Belfast and educated in Dublin

Birth of James Molyneaux, Ulster Unionist Party leader

Violent clashes in Belfast

Violent sectarian clashes erupt in Belfast between August 23 and August 31, 1920, during a period of intense political and social unrest in Ireland. At least 30 people are killed, and hundreds are injured. In the wake of the violence, large numbers of Catholic workers are expelled from the city’s shipyards and engineering firms, particularly Harland & Wolff, by loyalist mobs. These expulsions mark one of the most notorious episodes of anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland’s industrial history.

Birth in Belfast of Rinty Monaghan, world flyweight boxing champion

Court-martial of Terence MacSwiney, Irish Volunteer and Lord Mayor of Cork

Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, arrested by British; he immediately goes on hunger strike

On August 12, 1920, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork and a prominent Irish nationalist, was arrested by British authorities. Upon his arrest, MacSwiney immediately began a hunger strike, an act that would have profound implications for the Irish struggle for independence and would make him an enduring symbol of resistance.