1969 in Ireland

Incumbents

• President: Éamon de Valera
• Taoiseach: Jack Lynch
• Tánaiste:
• * Frank Aiken
• * Erskine H. Childers
• Minister for Finance: Charles Haughey
• Chief Justice: Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh
• Dáil:
• * 18th
• * 19th
• Seanad:
• * 11th
• * 12th

  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.
• 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.
• 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• *The farthing and halfpenny coins were withdrawn from circulation as Ireland moved towards decimalisation.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.
• 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.
• 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. 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.
• 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 '' 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.
• 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.
• *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

Births

• 6 January – Jonathan Philbin Bowman, journalist and radio presenter.
• 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.

Deaths

• 24 January – Patrick Hogan, Labour Party, TD, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann.
• 30 March – James Foley, cricketer.
• 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.
• 8 April – James Duffy, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1917 at Kereina Peak, Palestine.
• 23 April – Florence Wycherley, independent TD.
• 23 May – Tom Barry, hurler .
• 22 June – Thomas J. O'Connell, trade unionist, Labour Party leader, TD and Senator.
• 4 August – Stanley Bergin, cricketer.
• 8 August – Bulmer Hobson, nationalist, an early leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
• September – Cecilia Thackaberry, Presentation Sisters nun, killed in Nigeria performing relief work.
• 4 October – Cathal O'Shannon, politician, trade unionist and journalist.
• 8 August – Bulmer Hobson, member of Irish Volunteers, socialist and writer.
• 18 October – John "Pondoro" Taylor, hunter and writer.
• 18 November – Bridget Dowling, Adolf Hitler's sister-in-law by her marriage to Alois Hitler, Jr., died in the United States.
• 27 November – Séamus Ó Grianna, writer.