2010 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

• 4 January – Met Éireann said Ireland was experiencing its most extreme cold spell of weather since 1963.
• 5 January – A bomb alert on Dorset Street in Dublin was caused when officials at a Slovakian airport planted explosives on an innocent civilian and allowed him to leave the country on Danube Wings Flight V5 8230 in a security test gone wrong.
• 7 January – Schools remained shut following the holiday period due to extreme weather. Taoiseach Brian Cowen makes his first comments on the matter. Schools remain shut anyway. Minister for Education and Science Batt O'Keeffe later changes his mind.
• 13 January – An Arkefly Boeing 767 flying from Amsterdam to the Netherlands Antilles was grounded at Shannon Airport after a man claimed there wss a bomb on board. All 242 passengers and crew were evacuated. 44-year-old Jorge Flores appears in court in Ennis to be charged for this the following day.
• 22 January – The Waterford Crystal tourist centre in Kilbarry, County Waterford closed.
• 25–27 January – Taoiseach Brian Cowen joined UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Hillsborough Castle in Belfast for cross-party talks on the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland administration.
• 26 January – Edwin Curry from Kilkenny was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of 189 counts of indecent assault against children between 1964 and 1985.
• 28 January – Former national swimming coach Ger Doyle was convicted of 34 counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault against children in his care and sentenced to six and half years in prison.

  February

• 3 February – a fireball was seen across Ireland when a meteoroid explodes at an altitude of 100 miles, and fragments entered the atmosphere. Public excitement caused Astronomy Ireland's website to crash.
• 8 February – George Lee resigned from Fine Gael and Dáil Éireann with immediate effect, nine months after his election.
• 12 February
• * Déirdre de Búrca resigned from the Green Party and Seanad Éireann with immediate effect and criticised her former party leader John Gormley.
• * A fire on Capel Street in Dublin destroyed a head shop and a sex shop and forced the street to be shut down for the weekend.
• 13 February – West Jewellers of Grafton Street in Dublin closed down after 290 years.
• 18 February – Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea resigned after a controversy surrounding his remarks on a rival politician's relationship with brothels. Taoiseach Brian Cowen assigned himself temporary responsibility for the Department of Defence.
• 23 February – former Green Party leader Trevor Sargent resigned as a Minister of State after accepting that he made 'an error of judgment' in contacting gardaí about a case involving a constituent.

  March

• 8 March
• * Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen resigned from politics after seeking medical advice.
• * President of East Timor José Ramos-Horta began his two-day first official state visit to Ireland by meeting Taoiseach Brian Cowen, urging the country to continue providing economic support as a priority nation and receiving an honorary doctorate from University College Dublin.
• 9 March
• * Seven people were arrested, five in Waterford and two in Cork, over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
• * The Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Tallaght blamed "systemic and process failures" for more than 57,000 X-rays taken between 2005 and 2009 not being reviewed by medical professionals and admitted at least two patients received incorrect treatment, one of whom died and the other who is receiving cancer treatment.
• * A national strike by taxi drivers led to work stoppages at the country's three main airports, closed O'Connell Street in Dublin, and blocked other streets, while the High Court ordered protesters to leave their sit-in at the Commission for Taxi Regulation headquarters.
• 18 March – Former Chairman of Anglo Irish Bank Sean FitzPatrick was arrested at his home and has it searched under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 in Greystones, County Wicklow.
• Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland:
• * 20 March – Pope Benedict XVI's special pastoral letter to Irish Catholics on the issue was published by the Vatican to be read the following day in churches.
• * 21 March – A man confronted Bishop of Kerry William Murphy in the pulpit in the middle of the Gospel at St Mary's Cathedral, Killarney, while protesters walked out during Mass at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.
• 23 March – The taoiseach reshuffled his cabinet.
• 29 March – The new Limerick to Galway rail line was officially launched, reopening the rail links between the two cities for the first time in 34 years.

  April

• 2 April – Alcohol was served in pubs and hotels in Limerick on Good Friday after businesses were given special legal permission to do so because of the Munster versus Leinster rugby match in the Celtic League at Thomond Park. Drinkers in Limerick benefited from an "area exemption order", which was introduced in section 10 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act 1962. This exemption was granted by a District Court judge to cover a special event, enabling pubs in Limerick to serve alcohol between the hours of 6pm and 11.30pm.
• 15 April – Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupted air traffic across northern and western Europe, including Ireland.
• 30 April – RTÉ radio broadcaster Gerry Ryan dies at his home in Dublin, age 53. He is buried on 6 May.

  May

• 1 May – A carbon tax on home heating oil and other fuels was introduced by the government.
• 2 May – A Red C Poll for The Sunday Business Post showed the Labour party was the second-most popular party in Ireland, and that it had overtaken the Fianna Fáil party.
• 3 May
• * A further volcanic ash cloud returns over Irish skies, causing more chaos. It went away again by the 23rd.
• * Ten protected birds of prey – red kites, buzzards, white-tailed eagles, a golden eagle and a peregrine falcon – were found poisoned to death in counties Cork, Donegal, Kerry, Kildare, Leitrim, Waterford, and Wicklow, in "the worst spate of poisoning in recent years".
• 5 May
• * A group of retired and diseased coal miners protested in Dublin in a bid for compensation.
• *James Dillon is sentenced to life imprisonment at the Central Criminal Court for the murder of Roy Collins in Limerick on 9 April 2009.
• * The government narrowly defeated an opposition motion calling for an immediate by-election in Donegal South-West. Fianna Fáil deputies Frank Fahey and Timmy Dooley accidentally voted with the opposition.
• * The skeleton of a child discovered in a sand quarry arrived safely at Donegal County Museum after it was thought to have disappeared.
• 6 May
• * Bishop of Clogher Joseph Duffy's resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI.
• * The Supreme Court ruled that Acts of the Oireachtas or Statutory Instruments are not constitutionally obliged to be provided in both the English and Irish languages after a ten-year campaign led by Pól Ó Murchú.
• 11 May
• * Several substances commonly sold in head shops were outlawed with immediate effect by the government.
• * Several people were injured by police as protesters attempted to storm Dáil Éireann in a campaign against bank bail-outs. An investigation is launched.
• 13 May
• *Taoiseach Brian Cowen gave a speech in which he admitted for the first time that "domestic vulnerabilities" nearly caused Ireland's banking system to collapse.
• * Tánaiste Mary Coughlan dismissed concerns about Ireland's sovereignty being under threat by the European Commission's "peer review" policy, calling it "populism that is inappropriate and incorrect".
• 14 May – The High Court ruled in favour of shutting the landfill at Kerrdiffstown, Ireland's most complained-about landfill.
• 15 May – Hundreds of people protested against Health Service Executive plans to close Loughloe House, a retirement hospital for the elderly in Athlone.
• 18 May
• * Protesters gathered outside Dáil Éireann to condemn cutbacks by the government.
• * The Health Service Executive began its nationwide cervical cancer vaccination campaign.
• * Kieran O'Reilly was appointed as Bishop of Killaloe by the Vatican.
• 19 May
• * Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois Colm O'Reilly's resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI, but there was no formal announcement and the diocese was not sede vacante.
• * The government defeated by 77–72 a Fine Gael party motion calling for a date to be set for a by-election due in Waterford.
• 20 May – 186 Irish peacekeepers serving in Chad returned to Dublin, meaning no large battalions were working abroad for the first time in three decades.
• 21 May – The corpses of 40 children from Bethany Home in Rathgar were discovered in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.
• 22 May – Thousands of people protested about the future of Wexford General Hospital.
• 25 May
• * Hundreds of people demonstrated outside Dáil Éireann in pursuit of job creation.
• * Captain Gráinne Cronin, the first female pilot at Aer Lingus, retired after 33 years.
• 26 May – The government defeated by 72–68 the Fine Gael Bye-Election Bill in Dáil Éireann] following the government's reluctance to hold by-elections for vacant seats in Donegal South-West, Waterford and Dublin South.
• 27 May
• * The Medical Council of Ireland began a fitness to practise inquiry into two doctors who removed the wrong kidney from "Master Conroy" at Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin, despite pleas to the contrary from his mother.
• * Amnesty International criticised the government's children's human rights record in the organisation's annual report.
• 28 May
• * The Health Service Executive revealed that 37 children died in its care since 2000.
• * The final part of the Cork to Dublin motorway opened in County Laois.
• 31 May – Eight Irish nationals were involved in the events surrounding the Gaza flotilla raid carried out by Israeli commandos in international waters, including former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan. Three Oireachtas members – Aengus Ó Snodaigh, Chris Andrews and Mark Daly – are denied access to the flotilla by Cypriot authorities the day before the raid.