1939 in Ireland - Events

Events

  • January 11 - The INTO Congress in Galway calls on the government to abolish the ban on married women teachers.
  • February 12 - The Department of External Affairs announces that it recognises the government of General Francisco Franco.
  • February - In his Lenten pastoral, Bishop Daniel Mageean refers to "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People".
  • March 12 - Taoiseach Éamon de Valera attends the coronation of Pope Pius XII in Rome.
  • March 16 - Éamon de Valera is greeted by Benito Mussolini in Rome and a luncheon is held in honour of the Taoiseach.
  • March 22 - Ireland's neutrality is discussed during a Dáil debate on defence estimates. The government considers the implications for the export market to Britain if a neutral stand is taken.
  • March 30 - The Treason Bill passes its fifth and final stage in Dáil Éireann.
  • April 9 - The Gaelic Athletic Association votes to keep the name of President Douglas Hyde off its list of patrons. The situation arose when the President attended an international soccer game.
  • April 17 - The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Lord Craigavon, dismisses the Dublin government's position of neutrality as cowardly.
  • April 19 - In a speech to Seanad Éireann Taoiseach Éamon de Valera refers to the dropping of all references to the King and Great Britain from new Irish passports.
  • May 4 - The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland announces that conscription will not be extended to Northern Ireland.
  • May 18 - The Earl of Iveagh presents the Irish Government with his Dublin townhouse.
  • June 2 - The Treason Act 1939 becomes law: a sentence of death may be passed on anyone convicted of "levying war against the State."
  • September 1 - A state of emergency is declared by the government.
  • September 2 - Taoiseach Éamon de Valera tells the Dáil that Ireland will remain neutral in the European War.
  • September 3 - The Emergency Powers Act 1939 comes into force as Britain and France declare war on Germany. The Marine and Coastwatching Service is set up.
  • September 4 - SS Athenia torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Knut Nelson (Norway) lands 450 survivors in Galway.
  • September 9 - Billed as "The Last Race in Europe" until after World War II, the Irish Motor Racing Club holds its Phoenix Park Race; this includes motorcycle and automobile races.
  • September 11 - The Irish-flagged tanker Inverliffey is shelled and sunk by U-38. The U-boat tows the lifeboats away from the blazing oil.
  • September 13 - The Minister for Supplies, Seán Lemass, introduces petrol rationing.
  • October 30 - More than two dozen air-raid sirens, acquired by the Corporation, are tested across Dublin City.
  • December 23 - A million rounds of ammunition are stolen from the national arsenal at the Phoenix Park by pro-Nazi elements of the IRA.

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Famous quotes containing the word events:

    “I have no time to read newspapers. If you chance to live and move and have your being in that thin stratum in which the events which make the news transpire—thinner than the paper on which it is printed—then these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    “There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.”
    —Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)