1969
in
Ireland
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 in the year 1969 in Ireland.

Incumbents

Events

  • 1 January – The People's Democracy civil rights march left Belfast for Derry.
  • 4 January – Militant loyalists, including off-duty Ulster Special Constabulary ("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 in the United Kingdom.
  • 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.
  • 17 May – The first exhibition in Ireland of works by Pablo Picasso opened at the Exhibition Hall in Trinity College Dublin. Paintings, sculpture, ceramics, drawings, and graphics were displayed until the show ended on August 30th.[2][3]
  • June – Penneys department store in Dublin, predecessor of multinational fast fashion retailer Primark, was established by Arthur Ryan on behalf of the Weston family at 47 Mary Street.[4][5]
  • 18 June –
  • 20 July – Telefís Éireann, which normally stopped broadcasting by midnight during the 1960s, transmitted its first all-night programme when the first men landed on the Moon at 9.17 pm, Irish time. The moonwalk began at 3.39 the next morning and ended at 6.11. The entire broadcast was hosted live by Kevin O'Kelly, working alone in front of the camera, and he won a Jacob's Television Award for his performance.[6]
  • 21 July –
    • A message of goodwill from President Éamon De Valera, along with messages from 72 other heads of state, was placed on the surface of the moon by astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first moonwalk, performed during the Apollo 11 mission. De Valera's message read: "May God grant that the skill and courage which have enabled man to alight upon the Moon will enable him, also, to secure peace and happiness upon the Earth and avoid the danger of self-destruction." The messages of world leaders were photographed and micro-reduced in size 200 times, then inscribed on a half-dollar-coin-sized silicon disc which was encased in an aluminium capsule to protect it. The messages are readable through a microscope.[7]
    • 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
  • 3 August – Taoiseach Jack Lynch made a state visit to Lebanon.
  • 5 August
  • 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.[10][11]
  • 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.[12]
  • 15 August – A night of shooting and burning took place in Belfast. In Dublin, a Sinn Féin party 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 (police) 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.[13] 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.[14]
  • 10 September – The British Army started to construct the first of the Northern Ireland 'Peacelines' on the Falls-Shankill divide in Belfast, marking the first of many 'Peacewall'[15] 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.
  • December – The Irish Republican Army split into Official and Provisional wings.[16]
  • 1 December – The Fianna Fáil party paid tribute to former taoiseach and party leader Seán Lemass as his forty-five years of public life came to an end.
  • 31 December – The half crown coin was permanently withdrawn from circulation.
  • Undated
    • The 1967 policy of free secondary education for all was fully implemented.[17]
    • The last permanent residents left the island of Inis Cathaigh in the Shannon Estuary in County Clare.

Arts and literature

Sports

Gaelic Football Finals: Kerry 0–10 Offaly 0–7 Hurling Finals: Kilkenny 2–15 Cork 2–9

Births

Full date unknown

Deaths

See also

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. Art Collections - introduction Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved: 2023-12-20.
  3. The Trinity College Dublin Art Collections (PDF) Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved: 2023-12-20.
  4. "A household Irish name built from humble beginnings: The Penneys story". TheJournal.ie. 1 March 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  5. "Fashion swing is felt by Penneys' owners". Independent.ie. Independent News and Media. Reuters. 11 July 2008.
    • Tom O'Dea (22 July 1969). "ITV stole the show". The Irish Press. Dublin. pp. 1, 3.
    • White, Lawrence William (October 2009). "O'Kelly, Kevin". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
  6. McCaughren, Tom (5 August 1969). "Bomb Explodes at RTÉ Studios". RTÉ News. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
  7. Melaugh, Martin (7 May 2021). "A Chronology of the Conflict - 1969: Loyalist Bomb in Republic of Ireland". CAIN Web Service. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
  8. Richard Aldous (2007). Great Irish Speeches. 21 Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2NS: Quercus Publishing PLC. pp. 133–6. ISBN 978-1-84724-195-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  9. Jack Lynch (13 August 1969). "A broadcast by An Taoiseach Mr. Jack Lynch T.D." (Video of live television broadcast). Dublin, Ireland: Telefís Éireann. Retrieved 14 January 2024. It is clear ... that the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured, and perhaps worse.
  10. "1969: British troops sent into Northern Ireland". BBC News. 14 August 1969. Retrieved 10 January 2008.
  11. "Sir Ian Freeland – Testing time in Ulster". The Times. No. 60482. London. 23 November 1979. p. IV (Obituaries).
  12. Clonan, Tom (31 August 2009). "Operation Armageddon' would have been doomsday – for Irish aggressors". The Irish Times. Retrieved 3 September 2009.
  13. "Home". PeaceWall.
  14. Edwards, Aaron (2011). The Northern Ireland Troubles. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84908-525-0.
  15. "10 September 1967". Ireland in History Day by Day. 10 September 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
  16. McKittrick, David (5 July 2011). "Author of Holy War in Belfast remembered". BBC News. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
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