Events

• January 7 - Sinéad Bean de Valera dies in Dublin aged 96.
• January 30 - Charles Haughey is brought back onto the Fianna Fáil front bench.
• February 18 - Aer Lingus hostesses get a new uniform.
• April 17 - Mary Immaculate College, Limerick and Our Lady of Mercy College, Carysfort become recognised colleges of the National University of Ireland.
• June 18 - Dr Danny O'Hare is made acting director of the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin a day later the governing body meets for the first time.
• July 31 - Three members of the Miami Showband are killed in a Ulster Volunteer Force attack as they return from a dance in County Down.
• August 29 - Éamon de Valera dies in Dublin aged 92. His life has spanned the history of the Irish State. He was a leader of the Easter Rising in 1916. He served as Taoiseach for 21 years and President for 14 years. The government announces a day of mourning.
• October 3 - Dutch industrialist Dr. Tiede Herrema, who owns a factory in Limerick, is kidnapped.
• October 12 - Oliver Plunkett, the 17th-century Archbishop of Armagh, is canonised by Pope Paul VI in Rome.
• October 21 - Dr. Tiede Herrema is located with his kidnappers in Monasterevin, County Kildare.
• November 18 - The Tiede Herrema kidnap siege ends.
• December 28 - George Best plays a League of Ireland match for Cork Celtic against Drogheda.

Arts and literature

• The Druid theatre company is founded in Galway by Garry Hynes, Mick Lally and Marie Mullen.
• John Ryan's memoir Remembering How We Stood and Paul Durkan's collection of poems O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor are published.

Sport

Golf

• Carroll's Irish Open is won by Christy O'Connor Jnr (Ireland).

Births

• 1 January - Lorraine Pilkington, actress.
• 12 February - Andrew Myler, soccer player.
• 24 February - David Gill, economist.
• 17 April - Mark Foley, Limerick hurler.
• 25 April - Dara Ó Cinnéide, Kerry Gaelic footballer.
• 6 August - Willie Boland, soccer player.
• 28 August - Gareth Farrelly, soccer player.
• 15 September - Owen Butler, cricketer.
• 2 October - Girvan Dempsey, rugby player.
• 7 November - Ollie Moran, Limerick hurler.
• 16 December - Graham Lee, National Hunt jockey.
• 20 December - Graham Hopkins, drummer.

Full date unknown

• Allan Cavanagh, cartoonist and caricaturist.
• David Kitt, musician.
• Adrian James Martyn, historical writer.
• Pat Mulcahy, Cork hurler.
• Hugh O'Conor, actor.
• David O'Doherty, comedian.
• Sarah O'Flaherty, television presenter.

Deaths

January to June

• 7 January - Sinéad de Valera, writer and wife of third President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera (b.1878).
• 23 February - Ernest Blythe, writer, journalist and theatre manager, member of 1st Dáil and Cabinet Minister (b.1889).
• 27 February - John Vincent Holland, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1916 at Guillemont, France (b.1889).
• 21 April - James Kempster, cricketer (b.1892).
• 23 April - Michael Carty, Fianna Fáil TD (b.1916).
• 28 April - Tom Dreaper, horse trainer.
• 29 April - Arthur Blair-White, cricketer (b.1891).
• 10 May - Michael Tierney, Cumann na nGaedhael TD, member of Seanad Éireann and President of University College Dublin (b.1894).
• 27 May - William Robert Fitzgerald Collis, physician and writer (b.1900).
• 24 June - Frank MacDermot, barrister, soldier, banker and politician (b.1886).

July to December

• 31 July - Dan "Sandow" O'Donovan, Irish Republican Army member during the Irish War of Independence (b. c1895).
• 9 August - Maurice Gorham, journalist and broadcasting executive (b.1902).
• 10 August - Robert Barton, Sinn Féin MP, Cabinet Minister and signatory of Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921 (b.1881).
• 29 August - Eamon de Valera, former Taoiseach and President (b.1882).
• 2 October - Seamus Murphy, sculptor (b.1907).
• 25 October - Padraig Marrinan, artist (b.1906).
• 26 October - William Teeling, author, traveller and UK politician (b.1903).
• 25 November - Moyna Macgill, stage and film actress, mother of Angela Lansbury (b.1895).
• 14 December - George Harman, cricketer and rugby player (b.1874).