1957 in Ireland - Events

Events

  • January 1 - Border Campaign: Seán South and Fergal O'Hanlon are killed in an Irish Republican Army attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh. The two men become part of Republican folklore. Following this, the Government of Ireland uses the current Offences Against the State Act to arrest most of the IRA’s leadership, including its Chief of Staff, Seán Cronin.
  • January 12 - Over 100 Republican suspects are arrested under the Special Powers Act in Northern Ireland.
  • January 24 - Sir Alfred Chester Beatty becomes the first honorary Irish citizen.
  • February 4 - St. Mary's Church of Ireland Cathedral at Elphin, County Roscommon, is severely damaged in a violent storm, leading to its abandonment.
  • March 3 - Éamon de Valera tells a crowd in Cork that a 'United Ireland' can be achieved with time and the support of the people.
  • March 7 - Fianna Fáil returns to power winning 78 seats in the Sixteenth Dáil.
  • March 11 - Prize Bonds are introduced; the Bank of Ireland operates the scheme on behalf of the Minister for Finance.
  • May–September - Fethard-on-Sea boycott: A Roman Catholic priest and his parishioners boycott Protestant-owned local businesses.
  • July - Following the killing of a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer, the new Government of Ireland introduces wholesale internment without trial for IRA suspects.
  • July 4 - Dáil debates the Fethard-on-Sea Ne Temere boycott.
  • July 22 - The Gough Monument in the Phoenix Park is wrecked by an explosion so violent that it is heard all over Dublin.
  • August 7 - A 20-foot high war memorial in Limerick is blown up. It was erected to commemorate Limerick men who died in World War I.
  • September 30 - Last day of operation of 97 miles (155 km) of railway in Northern Ireland (Great Northern Railway (Ireland) branches and the entire Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway) following government instructions. County Fermanagh loses all its lines. The GNR closes a further 84 miles (134 km) of connecting lines in the Republic on October 12.
  • October 2 - The Minister for Health, Seán MacEntee, launches the Voluntary Health Insurance Board.
  • October 7 - President Seán T. O'Kelly's country residence, Roundwood House, County Wicklow, is destroyed by fire.
  • October 10 - The Windscale fire begins with a fire in a graphite core of a reactor at the Windscale Nuclear Power station and reprocessing centre on the Cumberland coast of North West England. Years later there are claims that the radiation caused cancers and birth defects in County Louth.
  • October 27 - The foundation stone of Galway Cathedral is blessed.
  • November 1 - The Soviet satellite Sputnik is visible over Dublin for the second time in a month.
  • November - Border Campaign: The premature explosion of a bomb at a farmhouse in County Louth kills four IRA men and a householder.
  • undated - Cyril Lord opens a new factory for the production of tufted carpets at Donaghadee, County Down.

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