1971 in Ireland - Events

Events

• February 15 - Decimalisation: The Republic of Ireland and United Kingdom both switch to decimal currency.
• March 20 - Maj. James Chichester-Clark resigns as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He is succeeded on March 23 by Brian Faulkner.
• April 3 - The Eurovision Song Contest is held in Dublin. Presented by Bernadette Ní Ghallchóir, it is the first colour broadcast by RTÉ.
• April 11
  • Ten British Army soldiers are injured in rioting in Derry.
  • The Gaelic Athletic Association votes to lift its ban on members participating in "foreign games" such as soccer, rugby and cricket.
• April 20 - Two British Royal Navy survey launches moored off Baltimore, County Cork, are towed out to sea and bombed by a Provisional Irish Republican Army unit, one, the Stork, being wrecked.
• May 11 - Seán Lemass, Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966, dies in Dublin aged 71. He was active during the 1916 Easter Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War.
• May 22 - Members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement return to Dublin on the "Contraceptive Train" from Belfast bringing contraceptives as a protest against the law banning their importation.
• July 8 - Two rioters are shot dead by British troops in Derry.
• July 16 - The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) announces that it is withdrawing from Stormont.
• August 9 - Internment without trial is introduced in Northern Ireland. Over 300 republicans are 'lifted' in pre-dawn raids by British security forces and interned in Long Kesh prison. Some Loyalists are later arrested. Twenty people die in riots that follow, including eleven in the Ballymurphy Massacre.
• August 12 - British troops begin clearing operations in Belfast following the worst rioting in years. Taoiseach Jack Lynch calls for an end to the Stormont administration.
• September 7 - The death toll in The Troubles reaches 100 after three years with the death of 14-year-old Annette McGavigan, who is fatally wounded by a gunshot in crossfire between British soldiers and the IRA.
• September 25 - A rally takes place in Dublin in support of a campaign of civil disobedience in Northern Ireland.
• September 27 - Prime ministers Edward Heath, Jack Lynch and Brian Faulkner meet at Chequers to discuss the Northern Ireland situation.
• October 13 - The British Army begins to destroy roads between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as a security measure.
• October 23 - Two women are shot dead by soldiers in Belfast as their car fails to stop at a checkpoint.
• October 31
  • A IRA bomb explodes at the top of the Post Office Tower in London.
  • The Standard Time (Amendment) Act, 1971 reverses the main provision of the Standard Time Act 1968, returning Irish winter time to UTC+0 (Western European Time).
• November 10 - The government defeats a motion of no confidence in Jim Gibbons.
• November 17 - Neil Blaney and Paudge Brennan are expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.
• December 4 - The McGurk's Bar bombing, carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force in Belfast, kills 15 people, the highest death toll from a single incident in the city during "the Troubles".