1966 in Ireland

Events in the year 1966 in Ireland.

Incumbents

13 February – The Bishop of Clonfert, Thomas Ryan, protested against the content of The Late Late Show because an audience member, Eileen Fox, told host Gay Byrne that she wore no nightie on her wedding night. The episode was broadly referred to thereafter in Ireland as the Bishop and the Nightie scandal.

6 March – A memorial was opened at Kilmichael, County Cork, to commemorate the 1920 ambush there.
8 March
* Nelson's Pillar in O'Connell Street in Dublin was blown up, probably by former Irish Republican Army volunteers marking this year's 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
* A teenage riot took place in the early hours at Dublin Airport when singer Dickie Rock returned from his joint-fourth-place rank at the Eurovision song contest in Luxembourg. Gardaí linked arms and struggled to contain the surging mob of 1,000 over-excited young people, twenty of whom were taken to hospital.
* The Broadcasting Authority Act changed the name of the national broadcasting authority from Radio Éireann to Radio Telefís Éireann.
31 March – The tricolour flag flown over the General Post Office in Dublin in 1916 was returned by the British to the taoiseach, Seán Lemass, in London.

6 April – The re-established Ulster Volunteer Force launched its campaign in Belfast.
10 April – Celebrations took place to mark the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1916. Nine hundred survivors of the rising heard the reading of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and President Éamon de Valera took the salute at a military parade.
11 April – President De Valera opened the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square in Dublin.
15 April – Construction of Ireland's first high-rise flats began in Ballymun, Dublin.
17 April – The Easter Rising was commemorated in Belfast by large Republican parades.

1 June – In the 1966 presidential election, the Fianna Fáil party candidate Éamon de Valera was elected to a second term in office when he beat Fine Gael party candidate Tom O'Higgins by 10,500 votes, less than one percent of the ballot. De Valera was inaugurated on June 25.

July 25 – US congressman Richard Nixon visited Dublin in connection with the establishment of a petrochemical company near the Nitrigin Éireann Teoranta fertiliser factory in Arklow, County Wicklow. He met the taoiseach, Seán Lemass and visited President de Valera at Áras an Uachtaráin.

7 September – At a National Union of Journalists seminar, the new Minister for Education, Donogh O'Malley, announced plans for his revolutionary free secondary education scheme, along with a free school-transport scheme for rural children. These plans were implemented in September 1967.
21 September – Allied Irish Banks was founded by the amalgamation of the Munster and Leinster Bank, Provincial Bank of Ireland, and Royal Bank of Ireland.

21 October – An anti-apartheid demonstration took place outside the National Stadium during a visit by the South African Amateur Boxing Team.

8 November – Tributes were paid to Seán Lemass who announced his resignation as Taoiseach.
10 November – The new taoiseach, Jack Lynch, and his ministers received their seals of office from President de Valera at the president's residence, Áras an Uachtaráin.
25 November – The body of the second President of Ireland, Seán T. O'Kelly, lay in state at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral.

1 December – Stillorgan Shopping Centre, the first shopping centre in Ireland, was opened by the recently retired taoiseach, Seán Lemass.

28 February – The first English-language production of Samuel Beckett's Come and Go took place at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin. It was first produced on 14 January in German, in Berlin; it was also first published, in French, this year.
18 July – The new Abbey Theatre in Dublin opened exactly 15 years after the original was burned down; the architect was former actor Michael Scott.
October – The first annual Castlebar Song Contest was staged in County Mayo.
Seamus Heaney's first poetry collection, Death of a Naturalist, was published.
Aidan Higgins's novel Langrishe, Go Down was published.

; Full date unknown

10 March – Frank O'Connor, short story writer and memoirist.
26 March – Joseph McGrath, Sinn Féin party and later Cumann na nGaedheal party TD, racehorse owner and breeder.
28 March – Patrick McCartan, Sinn Féin member of parliament and TD, member of the First Dáil, founder member of Clann na Poblachta.
1 April – Brian O'Nolan, satirist and humourist.
29 April – Tom Hales, Irish Republican Army volunteer, fought in Anglo-Irish War and Irish Civil War.
23 May – Jacko Heaslip, cricketer.
3 June – Fionán Lynch, Sinn Féin MP and TD, member of the First Dáil, cabinet minister, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fine Gael party TD.
7 June – James Hickey, Labour Party politician and Lord Mayor of Cork.
26 July – Maura Laverty, writer.
12 August – Mike McTigue, boxer, light heavyweight champion of the world 1923–1925.
23 November – Seán T. O'Kelly, founding member of Fianna Fáil, Cabinet minister and second President of Ireland.
14 December – Paul Galligan, merchant, member of the First Dáil representing Cavan West.
15 December – Conn Ward, Fianna Fáil politician.
25 December – Thomas Harvey, cricketer and rugby player.
27 December – Sim Walton, hurler .
31 December – Danny Ryan, hurler .