1969 in Ireland

← 1968 1967 1966 1965 1964 1969 in Ireland → 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974
Centuries:	18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s
See also:	1969 in Northern Ireland Other events of 1969 List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1969 in Ireland.

Incumbents

• President: Éamon de Valera
• Taoiseach: Jack Lynch (FF)
• Tánaiste:
  • Frank Aiken (FF) (until 2 July 1969)
  • Erskine H. Childers (FF) (from 2 July 1969)
• Minister for Finance: Charles Haughey (FF)
• Chief Justice: Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh
• Dáil:
  • 18th (until 22 May 1969)
  • 19th (from 2 July 1969)
• Seanad:
  • 11th (until 24 July 1969)
  • 12th (from 5 November 1969)

Events

• 1 January – the People's Democracy civil rights march left Belfast for Derry.
• 4 January – militant loyalists, including off-duty B-Specials, attacked civil rights marchers in County Londonderry.
• 10 January – protestors in Northern Ireland defied police orders to abandon a planned march.[1]
• 27 January – Ian Paisley was jailed for three months for illegal assembly in Northern Ireland.
• 4 March – the Lichfield Report was issued. It proposed the creation of a "University of Limerick" which would be "orientated towards technological subjects".
• 19 March – Ireland received its first loan from the World Bank.
• 22 March – civil rights demonstrations took place all over Northern Ireland.
• 17 April – Bernadette Devlin, the 21-year-old student and civil rights campaigner, won the Mid-Ulster by-election. She was the youngest-ever female Member of Parliament.
• 20 April – British troops arrived in Northern Ireland as a back-up to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
• 28 April – the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill, resigned.
• 1 May – Major James Chichester-Clark succeeded Terence O'Neill as the Northern Irish Prime Minister.
• 7 May – the Minister for Finance, Charles Haughey, announced tax exemptions for painters, sculptors, writers, and composers on earnings gained from works of cultural merit.
• 18 June – The 1969 Irish general election for the Dáil Éireann was held.
• 20 July – Telefís Éireann departed from its usual nightly schedule to broadcast its first programme late into the following morning when the first men landed on the moon at 21:17, Irish time. The moonwalk began at 03:39 the next morning and ended at 06:11. The entire broadcast was hosted live by Kevin O'Kelly, working alone in front of the camera, and he won a Jacob's Award for his performance.[2]
• 21 July – President de Valera sent U.S. President Richard Nixon a telegram of congratulations and admiration following the first manned moon landing by Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
• 1 August
  • A huge protest rally over events in Northern Ireland was held outside the General Post Office, Dublin. The crowd demanded that the Irish Army cross the border.
  • The farthing and halfpenny coins were withdrawn from circulation as Ireland moved towards decimalisation.
• 3 August – Taoiseach Jack Lynch made a state visit to the Lebanon.
• 5 August – Belfast experienced the worst sectarian rioting since 1935.
• 12 August – rioting broke out in Derry in the Battle of the Bogside, the first major confrontation of The Troubles.
• 13–17 August – Sectarian rioting took place in Northern Ireland.
• 13 August – as the Battle of the Bogside continued, Taoiseach Jack Lynch made a speech on television, saying that the Irish government "can no longer stand by" and demanded a United Nations peace-keeping force for Northern Ireland.[3]
• 14 August – British troops were deployed for the first time in Northern Ireland to restore law and order. Their presence was welcomed at first by many in the Catholic population of Derry.[4]
• 15 August – a night of shooting and burning took place in Belfast. In Dublin, a Sinn Féin protest meeting called for the boycott of British goods, Irish government protection of the people of Northern Ireland, and United Nations intervention.
• 16 August – British soldiers were deployed in particularly violent areas of Belfast.
• 17 August – members of the Garda Síochána clashed with protesters on O'Connell Street, Dublin, as a march against the Northern Ireland situation headed for the British embassy.
• 27 August – the B-Specials began to hand in their guns following a call by Lieutenant-General Ian Freeland to disband them.[5] British Home Secretary, James Callaghan, visited Belfast.
• 30 August – Jack Lynch ordered the Irish Army Chief of Staff, General Seán Mac Eoin, to prepare a plan, called Exercise Armageddon, for possible incursions into Northern Ireland in defence of Catholic communities there.[6]
• August – Andrew Boyd's historical work Holy War in Belfast was published in Tralee, going through 6 impressions in 3 years.
• 10 September – The British Army start to construct the first of the Northern Ireland 'Peacelines' on the Falls-Shankill divide in Belfast, marking the first of many 'Peacewall' constructions across the city.
• 10 October – the Hunt Committee Report recommended an unarmed civil police force in Northern Ireland and abolition of the Ulster Special Constabulary.
• 1 December – Fianna Fáil paid tribute to Seán Lemass as his forty-five years of public life came to an end.
• December – the Irish Republican Army split into Official and Provisional wings.[7]
• 31 December – the half crown coin was permanently withdrawn from circulation.
• Undated
  • date for full implementation of the 1967 policy of free secondary education for all in the Irish Republic.[8]
  • the last permanent residents left Inis Cathaigh.

Arts and literature

• 5 October – Samuel Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• December – Rock band Thin Lizzy was formed in Dublin.
• Donagh MacDonagh's poems A Warning to Conquerors are published in Dublin.

Sports

Football Finals: Kerry 0–10 Offaly 0–7

Hurling Finals: Kilkenny 2–15 Cork 2–9

Births

• 6 January – Jonathan Philbin Bowman, journalist and radio presenter (died 2000).
• 19 January – Steve Staunton, former international soccer player, former manager of the Republic of Ireland national football team.
• 8 February – Earl McCarthy, freestyle swimmer
• 15 March – Pat Fenlon, soccer player and manager.
• 31 March – Lawrence Patrick Parsons, Lord Oxmantown.
• 2 April – Ann Leonard, former Fianna Fáil politician.
• 1 May – Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin MEP for Dublin.
• 10 June – Breandán de Gallaí, Irish dancer.
• 13 June – Abe Elkinson, businessman.
• 1 July – Séamus Egan, musician.
• 10 August – Arthur Edward Rory Guinness, 4th Earl of Iveagh, Farmleigh.
• 23 August – Brian Hayes, Fine Gael TD for Dublin South-West.
• 7 September – Barry Ferguson, soccer player.
• 17 September – Ken Doherty, snooker player.
• 22 October – Owen Casey, tennis player.
• 24 October – Emma Donoghue, playwright, literary historian, and novelist.
• 29 October – Anthony Daly, Clare hurler and manager.
• 28 November – Sonia O'Sullivan, runner, World and European Championship Gold medallist.
• 30 November – Catherina McKiernan, athlete.
• 16 December – Michelle Smith, swimmer and triple Olympic gold medallist.

Full date unknown

• Liz Allen, journalist and writer.
• Kevin Barry, fiction writer.
• Billy Dooley, Offaly hurler.
• Ciarán Farrell, composer.

Deaths

• 24 January – Patrick Hogan, Labour Party, TD, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann (born 1885).
• 30 March – James Foley, cricketer (born 1898).
• 1 April – Francis de Groot, member of the right-wing New Guard of Australia, upstaged New South Wales Premier Jack Lang at the 1932 official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (born 1888).
• 8 April – James Duffy, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1917 at Kereina Peak, Palestine (born 1889).
• 23 April – Florence Wycherley, independent TD (born 1908).
• 23 May – Tom Barry, hurler (London-Irish) (born 1879).
• 22 June – Thomas J. O'Connell, trade unionist, Labour Party leader, TD and Senator (born 1882).
• 4 August – Stanley Bergin, cricketer (born 1926).
• 8 August – Bulmer Hobson, nationalist, an early leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (born 1883).
• September – Cecilia Thackaberry, Presentation Sisters nun, killed in Nigeria performing relief work (born 1909).
• 4 October – Cathal O'Shannon, politician, trade unionist and journalist (born 1893).
• 8 August – Bulmer Hobson, member of Irish Volunteers, socialist and writer (born 1882).
• 18 October – John "Pondoro" Taylor, hunter and writer (born 1904).
• 18 November – Bridget Dowling, Adolf Hitler's sister-in-law by her marriage to Alois Hitler, Jr., died in the United States (born 1891).
• 27 November – Séamus Ó Grianna, writer (born 1889).

See also

• 1969 in Irish television

References

1. "1969: Civil rights protesters defiant". BBC News. 10 January 1969. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2008.
2. Tom O'Dea (22 July 1969). "ITV stole the show". The Irish Press. Dublin. pp. 1, 3.
3. "Jack Lynch On The Situation In North". YouTube. 13 August 1969. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
4. "1969: British troops sent into Northern Ireland". BBC News. 14 August 1969. Retrieved 10 January 2008.
5. "Sir Ian Freeland – Testing time in Ulster". The Times (60482). London. 23 November 1979. p. IV (Obituaries).
6. Clonan, Tom (31 August 2009). "Operation Armageddon' would have been doomsday – for Irish aggressors". The Irish Times. Retrieved 3 September 2009.
7. Edwards, Aaron (2011). The Northern Ireland Troubles. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-525-0.
8. "10 September 1967". Ireland in History Day by Day. 10 September 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2019.