2009 in Ireland

Incumbents

• President: Mary McAleese
• Taoiseach: Brian Cowen
• Tánaiste: Mary Coughlan
• Minister for Finance: Brian Lenihan
• Chief Justice: John L. Murray
• Dáil: 30th
• Seanad: 23rd

  Events

January

• 1 January – The phase-out of incandescent light bulbs commenced in Ireland.
• 6 January – A priest, Michael Mernagh, completed a nine-day 272 km atonement pilgrimage from Cobh to the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin to repent the Roman Catholic Church's response to clerical child sex abuse.
• 8 January – Post-2008 Irish economic downturn: Dell announced the axing of almost 2,000 jobs at their factory in Limerick, with the total job loss predicted to rise to 10,000 in the region.
• 9 January – The inaugural Art O'Neill Challenge took place, with participants opting to walk or run from Dublin Castle to Glenmalure, starting from midnight and arriving in Glenmalure the day after.
• 9 January – Confidential documents from Letterkenny General Hospital were revealed to have been discovered in a public area of Derry.
• 11 January – A woman died in childbirth at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee, County Kerry.
• 17 January – A County Down woman was killed in extreme weather when her car was struck by a tree.
• 21 January – Anglo Irish Bank hidden loans controversy: Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised when the President, Mary McAleese, signed the Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Bill 2009.
• 22 January – A County Roscommon woman was jailed for seven years after her conviction for incest, sexual abuse and neglect of her children.
• 30 January – Post-2008 Irish economic downturn: After an announcement that the Waterford Crystal plant at Kilbarry was to shut down, its employees began an unofficial sit-in which led to some scuffles that damaged the main door to the visitors' centre. The sit-in continued until 22 March.

  February

• 2 February – extreme weather across the country disrupted transport services, including flights, and bus routes.
• 2 February – former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was blockaded and jostled out of National University of Ireland, Galway by angry students protesting at the reintroduction of fees as he attempted to lecture the Literary and Debating Society.
• 4 February – unemployment reached 9.2 percent with a record 326,100 people signing onto the live register. It was the highest monthly increase in 40 years with an average 1,500 people being laid off daily.
• 4 February – an estimated 15,000 students protested in Dublin at the threatened reintroduction of university fees, blockading government buildings for a time.
• 12 February – a man was arrested after threatening to set fire to himself outside Government Buildings in Dublin.
• 17 February – Irish Nationwide Chairman Michael Walsh resigned over his involvement in the Anglo Irish Bank hidden loans controversy.
• 21 February – up to 120,000 people marched in Dublin in protest at how the Government was handling the economic crisis.
• 24 February – Gardaí raided the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank in St Stephen's Green, Dublin.
• 25 February – two thousand members of the Garda Síochána marched through the streets of Dublin to protest against a pension levy.
• 25 February – The Irish Times suspended supply of its newspapers to the retailer Dunnes.
• 27 February – the Bank of Ireland robbery took place.

  March

• 2 March – the left door of a helicopter carrying politician Martin Cullen fell off at a height of 150 metres but no-one was hurt.
• 5 March – items belonging to singer Michael Jackson went on view in County Kildare.
• 6 March – the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed an appeal by Joe O'Reilly against his conviction for the murder of his wife, Rachel Callely, in October 2004.
• 7 March – Dissident Republicans opened fire on British soldiers in County Antrim. Two were killed and two injured while two civilian pizza delivery men, one Polish, were seriously injured. The Real IRA later claim responsibility.
• March – Odyssey Marine Exploration announced the discovery of the wreck of northwest of Fastnet Rock.

  April

• 8 April – the Supplementary Budget was announced by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.
• 25 April – an opinion poll showed a five percent drop to 23 percent in support for the governing Fianna Fáil party in the wake of early April's Supplementary Budget. Fine Gael, in opposition, was ten points clear at 33 percent, an increase of two, while the Labour Party, also in opposition, was also up two to 19 percent.
• 27 April – four people were tested after swine flu broke out from Mexico.
• 28 April – tests on all four Irish people with suspected cases of swine flu proved negative.
• 29 April – figures from the Central Statistics Office showed a record 388,600 people on the live register; the figure had almost doubled in one year, rising by 96 percent.
• 30 April – the Department of Health and Children's Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan confirmed the first probable case of swine flu at a news briefing in Dublin.

  May

• 6 May – the chief economics editor of broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, George Lee, was named as the Fine Gael party nomination for the Dublin South by-election.
• 11 May – Ryan Tubridy was named as the new presenter of The Late Late Show, replacing Pat Kenny. His first show as presenter was in September 2009.
• 14 May – Ireland failed to progress to the final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy's song "Et Cetera" was not one of the ten selected from the second semi-final in Moscow.
• 15 May – a 27-year-old man was shot dead and another man was wounded during a shootout with gardaí during an attempted raid on a cash-in-transit van in Lucan in west Dublin.
• 20 May – the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse report was published. The long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions said that priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades.
• 25 May – a new stretch of motorway between Fermoy and Mitchelstown in north Cork opened to traffic nine months ahead of schedule.
• 26 May – former Government press secretary Frank Dunlop was sentenced to two years incarceration for corruption, with the final six months suspended. He pleaded guilty to five charges of corruption.
• 29 May – Ireland's oldest brewery in Cork since at least 1650, and home to Beamish and Crawford since 1792, ceased operations.

  June

• 3 June – the Leaving Certificate English Paper 2 was postponed for two days after it emerged that students in one County Louth centre had already seen the exam paper.
• 5 June – the Local and European Parliament elections took place.
• 15 June – mayoral elections were held in several towns and cities.
• 16 June – the body of the man pertaining to the Peter Bergmann case was discovered at Rosses Point beach, County Sligo.

  July

• 1 July – a woman died after falling 20 metres off the Mweelrea mountains in County Mayo.
• 3 July – GOAL charity aid workers Sharon Commins and Hilda Kawuki were abducted from their compound in Darfur.
• 3 July – a child in Roxboro National School in County Roscommon was found to have a case of swine influenza.
• 6 July – the Treaty of Lisbon Bill was published.
• 7 July – a 61-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Castlebar, County Mayo. Her son was charged with her murder the following day.
• 10 July – Ronnie Dunbar was sentenced to life imprisonment for the manslaughter of Melissa Mahon.
• 12 July – the Broadcasting Act changed the spelling of the national broadcaster from Radio Telefís Éireann to Raidió Teilifís Éireann.
• 16 July – the report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes, also called An Bord Snip Nua, was published by University College Dublin economist Colm McCarthy. It recommended €5.3 billion in potential savings, including 17,300 public service job cuts and a five percent drop in social welfare.
• 23 July – the Defamation and Criminal Justice Bills became law, after being signed by President Mary McAleese.
• 30 July – draft legislation to establish the National Asset Management Agency was published. The Bill proposed to give NAMA extensive powers to take over land and development loans from banks in an effort to get them lending again and supporting economic recovery.

  August

• 5 August – a murder investigation was launched after a woman's body was discovered under a tree in Phoenix Park. The woman was later found to be 50-year-old Eugenia Bratis from Timișoara in Romania, who had been in Ireland for several months. Her torso was stabbed several times.
• 12 August – former President Mary Robinson received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama at a ceremony in the White House in Washington, D.C., with Obama declaring her to have "not only shown a light on human suffering, but illuminated a better future for our world".
• 21 August – a section of the main Dublin to Belfast railway line collapsed in Malahide in north Dublin. A 20-metre section of viaduct on the Broadmeadow estuary, between Malahide and Donabate gave way. A preliminary assessment carried out on 24 August identified significant erosion of the seabed as a possible reason for the collapse. The viaduct reopened to traffic on 16 November.

  September

• 1 September – at a civic reception, Muhammad Ali was made the first Honorary Freeman of Ennis, the birthplace of his great-grandfather, Abe Grady, who left the town in the 1860s. Ali later sends a letter of thanks to the people of Ennis.
• 5 September – apprentice jockey Jamie Kyne from Claregalway, County Galway was killed in a fire at his flat in Yorkshire, UK.
• 13 September – the Dublinbikes bicycle-sharing system was launched.
• 14 September – Ireland's 2008 Olympic bronze medalist, boxer Darren Sutherland, was found dead in London at the age of 27. Hundreds of people attended his funeral one week later in Navan, County Meath.
• 16 September – 21 people were injured, three seriously, after a collision involving a Luas tram and a double-decker bus on O'Connell Street in Dublin, the worst accident to date involving the Luas service.
• 18–20 September – the three-day Global Irish Economic Forum was held in Farmleigh House in Dublin.
• 20 September – the Government announced their intention to introduce a national postal code system in 2011.
• 21 September – Lisa Cummins and 16-year-old Owen O'Keefe set new records for swimming the English Channel.
• 22 September – Mary McAleese opened the National Ploughing Championships in Athy, County Kildare.
• 27 September – the presence of swine influenza in Irish pigs was confirmed for the first time.
• 30 September – thousands of people protested in Dublin against Colm McCarthy's An Bord Snip Nua proposals.