1998 in Ireland

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See also:	1998 in Northern Ireland Other events of 1998 List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1998 in Ireland.

Incumbents

• President: Mary McAleese (Fianna Fáil)
• Taoiseach: Bertie Ahern (Fianna Fáil)

Events

• 1 January – The Vocational Education Committees of the towns of Bray, Drogheda, Sligo, Tralee and Wexford are abolished.
• 14 January – The Planning Tribunal opens in Dublin Castle.
• 27 February – Republic of Ireland qualifies for entry into the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union.
• 15 March – Former Fine Gael Minister Hugh Coveney dies in a fall from a cliff in County Cork.
• 10 April (Good Friday) – The British and Irish governments and all the political parties in Northern Ireland (except the Democratic Unionists) sign the Belfast Agreement.
• 22 May – The Good Friday Agreement is endorsed in a referendum by people north and south of the border.
• 1 July – The new Northern Ireland Assembly first meets, in "shadow" form; Reg Empey and Seamus Mallon are elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively.
• 15 August – Omagh bombing: 29 people die in a car bomb explosion near the centre of Omagh, County Tyrone, caused by the Real Irish Republican Army.
• 4 September – Bill Clinton, President of the United States, begins his second official visit to the island of Ireland (his first being in 1995).
• 26 November – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Oireachtas.
• 30 November – Unemployment falls by 20% with the number of people in work rising by 100,000.
• 12 December – Members of the Labour Party and Democratic Left agree to merge.
• 26 December – Great Boxing Day Storm ('Hurricane Stephen'): Severe gale force winds hit north west Ireland causing widespread disruption to services.
• 31 December – The Punt is traded for the last time as the Euro currency is launched.

Arts and literature

• 28 February – Actor and comedian Dermot Morgan dies suddenly in London.
• 25 May – Patrick McCabe's novel Breakfast on Pluto is published.
• 3 July – The boyband Westlife are formed.
• 28 August – Maeve Binchy's novel Tara Road is published.
• 20 September – TV3 goes on the air.
• 7 October – Marina Carr's drama By the Bog of Cats opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
• 24 December – Gay Byrne broadcasts his final radio show, from St Stephen's Green, Dublin.
• John Montague becomes the first occupant of the Ireland Chair of Poetry.
• Garry Hynes becomes the first woman to win a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (The Beauty Queen of Leenane) on Broadway.
• Brendan Graham's Great Famine novel The Whitest Flower is published.
• Terence Dolan's A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English is published.

Sport

Gaelic football

• Galway GAA win the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, beating Kildare GAA in the final.

Golf

• Murphy's Irish Open is won by David Carter (England).

Hurling

• Offaly GAA win the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship for the second time in five years.

Olympics

• 6 August – Olympic gold medalist Michelle Smith is banned from competition for four years for tampering with a drug test.

Soccer

• St Patrick's Athletic won the League of Ireland
• Cork City FC won the FAI Cup
• Shelbourne's home UEFA Cup tie against Rangers is moved to England due to fears of sectarian trouble. Despite taking a 3–0 lead, Shels lose 3–5.
• 7 May – The Irish under-16 team wins the European Championship.

Births

• 17 March - Nathan O'Toole, actor
• 30 March - Galileo, racehorse

Deaths

• 26 January – Ernest Gébler, writer (b. 1914).
• 28 February – Dermot Morgan, actor and comedian (b. 1952).
• 15 March – Hugh Coveney, Fine Gael TD and Cabinet Minister, yachtsman (b. 1935).
• 23 June – Maureen O'Sullivan, actress (b. 1911).
• 6 May – Sybil Connolly, fashion designer (b. 1921).
• 22 May – Jim Power, former Galway hurler (b. 1894).
• 26 May – Kate Cruise O'Brien, writer (b. 1948).
• 13 August – Liam de Paor, historian, archaeologist, (b.1926, in Dublin, Ireland).
• 20 September – Robert Malachy Burke, Christian Socialist and philanthropist (b. 1907).
• 11 November – Paddy Clancy, folk singer (b. 1922).
• 13 November – Valerie Hobson, actress (b. 1917).
• 21 November – John David Gwynn, cricketer (b. 1907).
• 26 December – Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official IRA (b. 1923).

Full date unknown

• Paul O'Dwyer, lawyer and politician in the United States (b. 1907).
• Tommy Quaid, Limerick hurler (b. 1957).

External links

• 1998 at Reeling in the Years