1992 in Ireland - Definition

See also: 1991 in Ireland, other events of 1992, 1993 in Ireland and the list of 'years in Ireland'.

Events

• January 20 - Peter Brooke offers to resign as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland following criticism of his singing on The Late Late Show only hours after an IRA bomb explodes.
• January 30 - Charles Haughey resigns as Taoiseach and as leader of Fianna Fáil.
• February 4 - Mary Robinson becomes the first President of Ireland to visit Belfast. On the same day an off-duty RUC officer in Belfast kills three people in a Sinn Féin office before commiting suicide.
• February 5 - Loyalist gunmen kill five Catholics in an attack on a bookmaker's shop in Belfast.
• February 6 - Albert Reynolds is elected the fifth leader of Fianna Fáil.
• February 11 - Charles Haughey resigns as Taoiseach. Albert Reynolds collects his seal of office as his successor.
• February 18 - An Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, discusses the situation with other party leaders as the High Court prevents a 14-year-old rape victim from going to Britain for an abortion.
• February 26 - The Supreme Court lift the High Court ruling preventing a 14-year-old girl from going to Britain for an abortion.
• April 13 - 250 years after the first performance of Handel's Messiah in Dublin, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performs the oratario at the Point Theatre.
• May 7 - Bishop Eamon Casey of Galway resigns following the revelation that he is the father of a teenage boy.
• May 9 - Linda Martin wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.
• May 31 - Christy O'Connor Jnr wins the British Masters golf tournament.
• June 18 - A referendum in the Republic approves the Maastricht Treaty on European Union: 69.1% in favour; 30.9% against.
• July 8 - President Robinson addresses both houses of the Oireachtas.
• September 23 - The IRA destroys Belfast's forensic science laboratory with a huge bomb.
• November 5 - The government loses a confidence motion and the Dáil is dissolved. Two former Taoisigh, Charles Haughey and Garret FitzGerald, announce their retirement from politics.
• November 25 - Three referenda are held in the Republic on abortion-related issues: the right to travel and the right to (abortion-related) information is supported.
• December 31 - Unemployment reaches record levels in 1992. 290,000 people are out of work.

Arts and literature

• Vincent Woods' play At the Black Pig's Dyke is performed by the Druid Theatre Company.
• Samuel Beckett's first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, is finally published.
• Eugene McCabe's novel Death and Nightingales and Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy are published.

Sports

• August 8 - Michael Carruth wins Ireland's first gold medal in 36 years at the Olympic Games in Barcelona. Wayne McCullough wins a silver medal.

Births

Deaths

• January 9 - Bill Naughton, playwright.
• March 20 - Michael McLaverty, novelist.
• April 28 - Sir Francis Bacon, artist.
• May 12 - Joseph Raftery, archaeologist.
• May 13 - F. E. McWilliam, sculptor.
• July 6 - Bryan Guinness, 2nd Lord Moyne, lawyer and poet.
• July 21 - Aloys Fleischmann, composer.