1981 in Northern Ireland

Events

*16 January- Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey is shot and injured at her home in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Loyalist terrorists suspected. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/16/newsid_2530000/2530469.stm 1981: Gunmen shoot civil rights campaigner] ]
*1 March - Bobby Sands begins a hunger strike at the Long Kesh prison in Belfast.
*10 April - Bobby Sands is elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
*5 May - Bobby Sands dies on the 66th day of his hunger strike in the Maze Prison in Belfast.
*12 May - Francis Hughes, previously the most wanted man in the North, dies on the 59th day of his hunger strike in Belfast (joined hungerstrike March 15).
*12 May - British Army sniper kills INLA member Emmanuel McClarnon from the top of Divis Tower, on the night Francis Hughes died on hunger strike. [ [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1981.html CAIN] ]
*21 May - Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara both die on the 61st day of their hunger strike in the Maze Prison (joined hungerstrike March 22).
*8 July - IRA hunger striker Joe McDonnell dies (joined hungerstrike May 9).
*13 July - Hunger striket Martin Hurson dies (joined hungerstrike May 29).
*1 August - Hunger striker Kevin Lynch dies (joined hungerstrike May 23).
*2 August - Kieran Doherty, TD for Cavan-Monaghan, dies on the 73rd day of his hunger strike (joined hungerstrike May 22).
*8 August - Hunger striker Thomas McElwee dies (joined hungerstrike June 8).
*20 August - Hunger striker Micky Devine dies (joined hungerstrike June 22).
*3 October - Hunger strike officially ends.

Arts and literature

port

Football

*Irish League::Winners: Glentoran

*Irish Cup::Winners: Ballymena United 1 - 0 Glenavon

Motorcycling

*Robert Dunlop enters his first professional race, where he was fully sponsored, at Aghadowey.

Births

*17 January - Warren Feeney, international soccer player.
*20 January - Christine Bleakley, television presenter.
*20 January - Nathan Connolly, musician with Snow Patrol.
*27 March - Terry McFlynn, soccer player.
*31 March - Gerard McCarthy, actor.
*23 April - Jenny McDonough, hockey player.
*29 April - George McCartney, soccer player.
*17 July - Andy Maxwell, rugby player.
*10 September - Alan Blayney, soccer player.

Full date unknown

*Brian Philip Davis, filmmaker.

Deaths

*21 January - Norman Stronge, Ulster Unionist Party politician and Speaker of the Northern Ireland House of Commons for 23 years (b.1894).
*5 May - Bobby Sands, Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and MP who died on hunger strike (b.1954).
*8 July - Joe McDonnell, volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who died in the 1981 Irish hunger strike (b.1951).
*2 August - Kieran Doherty, Irish republican hunger striker and volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (b.1955).

Full date unknown

*Jackie Vernon, footballer (b.1918).

References