1969 in Northern Ireland

Events

*1 January - The People's Democracy civil rights march leaves Belfast for Derry.
*4 January - Militant loyalists, including off-duty B-Specials, attack the civil rights marchers at Burntollet bridge in County Londonderry.
*5 January - Riots in Derry leave over 100 people injured.
*27 January - Reverend Ian Paisley, hardline Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, is jailed for 3 months for illegal assembly.
*22 March - Civil rights demonstrations take place all over Northern Ireland.
*17 April - Bernadette Devlin, the 21-year-old student and civil rights campaigner, wins the Mid-Ulster by-election. She is the youngest female MP ever.
*20 April - British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
*28 April - Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill, resigns.
*1 May - Major James Chichester-Clark succeeds Terence O'Neill as the North's Prime Minister.
*1 August - A huge protest rally over events in Northern Ireland is held outside the GPO. The crowd demands that the Irish Army cross the border.
*5 August - Belfast experiences the worst sectarian rioting since 1935.
*13 August - As the siege of the Bogside in Derry continues An Taoiseach Jack Lynch makes one of the most important speeches ever made on Irish television. He says that the Irish government "can no longer stand idly by" and he demands a United Nations peace-keeping force for Northern Ireland. (See: Battle of the Bogside).
*15 August - A night of shooting and burning takes place in Belfast (see 1969 Northern Ireland Riots). In Dublin a Sinn Féin protest meeting calls for the boycott of British goods, Irish government protection of the people of Northern Ireland and United Nations intervention.
*16 August - British soldiers are deployed into particularly violent areas of Belfast.
*17 August - Members of an Garda Síochána clash with protesters on O'Connell Street, Dublin, as a march against the Northern Ireland situation heads for the British embassy.
*27 August - The B-Specials begin to hand in their guns following the decision by Lieutenant-General Freeland to disband them. British Home Secretary, James Callaghan, visits Belfast.
*10 October - The Hunt Committee Report recommends an unarmed civil police force in Northern Ireland.
*Goliath crane is completed at Harland and Wolff shipyard.

Arts and literature

port

Football

*Irish League::Winners: Linfield

*Irish Cup::Winners: Ards 0 - 0, 4 - 2 Distillery

Births

*20 January - Ray Close, boxer.
*14 February - David Holmes, DJ, musician and composer.
*27 March - Tracey Magee, television presenter and journalist.
*6 May - Jim Magilton, soccer player.
*24 May - Martin McCague, former cricketer.
*29 August - Joe Swail, snooker player.
*10 November - Karen Corr, pool and snooker player.
*12 December - Pearse Jordan, Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer killed by RUC (d.1992).
*28 December - P. J. Holden, comic artist.

Full date unknown

*Dudi Appleton, journalist, script writer and film director.
*Adrian Archibald, motorcycle racer.
*Rimi B. Chatterjee, author.
*David Cullen, basketball player.

Deaths

*4 October - Cathal O'Shannon, politician, trade unionist and journalist (b.1893).
*W. R. Rodgers, poet and writer (b.1909).