1961 in Ireland - Events

Events

  • January 6 - Lieutenant-General Seán Mac Eoin flies out of Dublin en route to the Congo. He is taking up his new post as General Commanding Officer of the United Nations.
  • January 20 - John F. Kennedy becomes President of the United States, the first of Irish-Catholic descent.
  • June 10 - President Éamon de Valera and Mrs. Sinéad de Valera greet Prince Rainier and Princess Grace at Áras an Uachtaráin.
  • June 15 - Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco take tea in a three roomed cottage near Newport, County Mayo, from which the Princess' grandfather, John Henry Kelly, set off for America almost 100 years before.
  • September 16 - Atlantic Hurricane Debbie makes landfall at Dooega on Achill Island, then tracking across County Mayo, the only known tropical cyclone to make landfall in Ireland.
  • October 25 - St. John's Church in Sligo is reconstituted as the Cathedral Church for the Church of Ireland dioceses of Elphin and Ardagh, under the name of the Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin and St. John the Baptist.
  • November - Minister for Justice Charles Haughey establishes military courts which hand down long prison sentences to convicted Irish Republican Army men.
  • November 10 - In fog, the Guinness ship Lady Gwendolen rams and sinks the Freshfield anchored in the Mersey.
  • December 20 - The last legal execution in Ireland occurs in Belfast, Northern Ireland - it is of Robert McGladdery for murder.
  • December 31 - Telefís Éireann goes on air as President de Valera inaugurates the new service. The station's first broadcast is a New Year countdown with celebrations at the Gresham Hotel and O'Connell Street, Dublin, relayed from the Kippure transmitter.
  • The last Irish Sea sail-using cargo vessel, and the last sail ship to trade on the Mersey, the auxiliary schooner De Wadden, ceases trading commercially.

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