1969 in Ireland

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Decades: 1940s • 1950s • 1960s • 1970s • 1980s Centuries: 18th • 19th • 20th • 21st See also: 1969 in Northern Ireland Other events of 1969 List of years in Ireland

Events

• January 1 - The People's Democracy civil rights march leaves Belfast for Derry.
• January 4 - Militant loyalists, including off-duty B-Specials, attack the civil rights marchers in County Londonderry.
• January 10 - Protestors in Northern Ireland defy police orders to abandon a planned march.
• January 27 - Ian Paisley is jailed for three months for illegal assembly in Northern Ireland.
• March 4 - The Lichfield Report is issued. It proposes the creation of a "University of Limerick" which will be "orientated towards technological subjects".
• March 19 - The Republic of Ireland receives its first loan from the World Bank.
• March 22 - Civil rights demonstrations take place all over Northern Ireland.
• April 17 - Bernadette Devlin, the 21-year-old student and civil rights campaigner, wins the Mid-Ulster by-election. She is the youngest female MP ever.
• April 20 - Troops arrive in Northern Ireland as a back-up to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
• April 28 - The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill, resigns.
• May 1 - Major James Chichester-Clark succeeds Terence O'Neill as the Northern Irish Prime Minister.
• May 7 - The Republic's Minister for Finance Charles Haughey announces tax exemptions for painters, sculptors, writers and composers on earnings gained from works of cultural merit.
• June 18 - Former French President General Charles de Gaulle and his wife are greeted by President de Valera at Áras an Uachtaráin.
• July 21 - Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to set foot on the moon. President de Valera sends President Nixon a telegram of congratulations and admiration.
• July 31 - The halfpenny is withdrawn from circulation as the country moves towards decimalisation.
• August 1 - A huge protest rally over events in Northern Ireland is held outside the GPO. The crowd demands that the Irish Army cross the border.
• August 3 - Taoiseach Jack Lynch makes a state visit to the Lebanon.
• August 5 - Belfast experiences the worst sectarian rioting since 1935.
• August 12 - Rioting breaks out in Derry in the Battle of the Bogside, the first major confrontation of The Troubles.
• August 13–17 - Sectarian rioting in Northern Ireland.
• August 13 - As the Battle of the Bogside continues, Taoiseach Jack Lynch makes a speech on Southern television. He says that the Republic's government "can no longer stand by" and demands a United Nations peace-keeping force for Northern Ireland.
• August 14 - British troops are deployed for the first time in Northern Ireland to restore law and order. Their presence is at first welcomed by many in the Catholic population of Derry.
• August 15 - A night of shooting and burning takes place in Belfast. In Dublin a Sinn Féin protest meeting calls for the boycott of British goods, Irish government protection of the people of Northern Ireland and United Nations intervention.
• August 16 - Soldiers are deployed into particularly violent areas of Belfast.
• August 17 - Members of an Garda Síochána clash with protesters on O'Connell Street, Dublin, as a march against the Northern Ireland situation heads for the British embassy.
• August 27 - The B-Specials begin to hand in their guns following a call by Lieutenant-General Ian Freeland to disband them. British Home Secretary, James Callaghan, visits Belfast.
• August 30 - Jack Lynch orders the Irish Army Chief of Staff, General Seán Mac Eoin, to prepare a plan for possible incursions into Northern Ireland in defence of Catholic communities there, Exercise Armageddon.
• October 10 - The Hunt Committee Report recommends an unarmed civil police force in Northern Ireland and abolition of the Ulster Special Constabulary.
• December 1 - Fianna Fáil pays tribute to Seán Lemass as his forty-five years of public life come to an end.

Arts and literature

• October 5 - Samuel Beckett is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sports

Football Finals: Kerry 0-10 Offaly 0-7

Hurling Finals: Kilkenny 2-15 Cork 2-9

Births

January to June

• 6 January - Jonathan Philbin Bowman, journalist and radio presenter (d.2000).
• 19 January - Steve Staunton, former international soccer player, former manager of Republic of Ireland.
• February 8 — 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 representing Dublin.
• 10 June - Breandán de Gallaí, Irish dancer.
• 13 June - Abe Elkinson, businessman.

July to December

• 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.
• 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.
• Billy Dooley, Offaly hurler.
• Ciarán Farrell, composer.
• Graham Linehan, television writer and director.
• Mark Little, journalist and television presenter.

Deaths

• 24 January - Patrick Hogan, Irish Labour Party, TD, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann (b.1886).
• 30 March - James Foley, cricketer (b.1898).
• 1 April - Francis de Groot, upstaged New South Wales Premier Jack Lang at the 1932 official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (b.1888).
• 8 April - James Duffy, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1917 at Kereina Peak, Palestine (b.1889).
• 22 June - Thomas J. O'Connell, trade unionist, Irish Labour Party leader, TD and Senator (b.1882).
• 4 August - Stanley Bergin, cricketer (b.1926).
• September - Cecilia Thackaberry, Presentation Sisters nun, killed in Nigeria performing relief work (b.1909).
• 4 October - Cathal O'Shannon, politician, trade unionist and journalist (b.1893).

Full date unknown

• Bridget Dowling, Adolf Hitler's sister-in-law via her marriage to Alois Hitler, Jr. (b.1891).
• Bulmer Hobson, member of Irish Volunteers, socialist and writer (b.1882).
• Séamus Ó Grianna, writer (b.1889).
• John "Pondoro" Taylor, hunter and writer (b.1904).