1 January – The Government stopped paying expenses to former taoisigh (prime ministers), while sweeping price increases for goods and services, and in value added tax (VAT), affected consumers when decisions announced in Budget 2012 came into effect. A controversial €100 household charge was applied, as were large increases in transport fares, motor taxation, and health insurance costs.[2][3]
8 January – Fine Gael politician and RTÉ broadcaster Barry O'Neill was involved in controversy when photographs appeared on Facebook of his new wife giving Nazi salutes beside models of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis during their European honeymoon.[7]
12 January – Ulster Bank announced plans to cut 950 jobs from its Irish operations by the end of the year, with around 600 to be cut in the Republic of Ireland.[8]
13 January – The Criminal Law (Defence and the Dwelling) Act 2012, drafted after the 2004 death of John Ward, came into effect. The new home defence law allowed householders to defend their homes against intruders using reasonable force, including deadly force.[9]
15 January – A fatal fishing disaster occurred off the south west coast.[10] Three bodies were later found; two others remain missing.[11]
16 January
Seán Quinn, Ireland's richest person as recently as 2008, was declared bankrupt at the High Court.[12]
22–3 January – A strong solar proton storm created a rare display of the aurora borealis in Ireland that was observed by thousands of people in north County Donegal,[14] and as far south as Charlestown, County Mayo.[15]
The Office of the Data Protection Commission wrote to Dublin City Council about its giving the personal details of 140,000 customers to a private waste company called Greyhound.[21]
26 January
An earthquake classified as minor (magnitude 2.2) struck County Donegal.[22][23]
Dublin officially began its term as the European City of Science 2012.[24]
Dáil Éireann passed the Water Services Amendment Bill, allowing the government to charge rural dwellers for their septic tanks, as well as to inspect them.[25]
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, told the world that Irish people "went mad borrowing" from a banking system that spawned greed.[26]
The High Court was told that 11 gardaí were investigating sinister goings-on at Anglo Irish Bank;[clarification needed] Mr. Justice Peter Kelly called the revelation "extraordinary".[27][28]
February
1 and 2 February – Jimmy Harte, a Labour Senator, was involved in controversy over contributions to a misleading story in the Irish Independent on a Polish woman's account of living in Ireland, and subsequent comments on Twitter, which he later withdrew.[29]
6 February – Workers at Galway Airport staged a sit-in to protest at the failure by management to guarantee that they will receive redundancy payments when their contracts expire.[30]
10 February – Eircom admitted that personal details of thousands of eMobile and Meteor customers and hundreds of Meteor staff were contained on three laptops stolen in December 2011.[31]
11 February – One of the largest protest marches in Cork city in recent years took place in solidarity with the Vita Cortex sit-in.[32]
18 February – Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping began a three-day trip to Ireland.[34]
20 February – In "scenes reminiscent of the land wars of the 18th century", a group of housing activists and Joan Collins TD successfully prevented an attempted eviction by the deputy sheriff of a man from his home on Mountrath, County Laois.[35]
Dozens of community groups from counties Donegal, Tipperary, Galway, Limerick and Kerry went to Leinster House to protest against austerity.[42]
Éamon Ó Cuív was sacked as Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil and Communications Spokesperson of the party after a row with leader Micheál Martin over the Fiscal Compact referendum.[43][44]
Minister of State Seán Sherlock signed into law a statutory instrument to amend Ireland's copyright legislation in spite of 80,000 signatures being gathered to oppose the move.[45][46]
14 March – The Government was defeated in a vote taken at a meeting of the Oireachtas finance committee after numerous Fine Gael TDs went missing. The motion, tabled by Peter Mathews who was then forced to vote against it following threats from his colleagues, proposed that Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan be forced to appear before the Oireachtas finance committee by the end of the month.[52]
15 March – A convicted Garda killer escaped from prison leading to a massive cross-border manhunt.[53]
18 March – Environment Minister Phil Hogan was involved in controversy over media reports on a crude sexual insult he admitted delivering to ex-Taoiseach John Bruton's former administrator at an Oireachtas golf outing in August 2011.[54][55]
The Central Statistics Office published figures that showed Ireland had fallen back into recession in the final quarter of 2011, following an even larger contraction in the previous one.[58]
24 March
Thousands of people packed to capacity the National Stadium in Dublin for a national rally to protest the household charge payment introduced in the last Budget. Crowds of people unable to get in gathered outside.[59]
31 March – Ireland was reported by international media to be facing a popular revolt after government figures indicated less than half of the country's households had paid the new property tax by that day's deadline as thousands of people from across the country marched on the governing Fine Gael party's annual conference at the Convention Centre Dublin.[69][70]
April
2 April – Female genital mutilation was made illegal by the enactment by President Higgins of the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 2012.[71][72]
3 April
It emerged that six people had died at a private nursing home in County Donegal over the previous ten days.[73]
5 April – The majority of shareholders in support services company Siteserv voted to accept a takeover proposal from the Denis O'Brien-controlled Millington, worth €45 million. The controversial deal came after French company Altrad claimed it had tried to buy Siteserv for a higher price.[75]
11 April – Environment Minister Phil Hogan sought sanctuary in a Carlow cathedral after running away from protesters against his property tax in his own constituency.[76]
14 April – As the Labour Party held its centenary conference at the National University of Ireland, Galway, gardaí used pepper spray to hold back anti-austerity demonstrators protesting against government cuts on the grounds, with reports of a 13-year-old child being threatened with the spray as the building was locked down amid chants of "Revolution, revolution!" and a coffin draped in the Irish tricolour.[77]
17 April – Environment Minister Phil Hogan announced the establishment of Irish Water, as a subsidiary of Bord Gáis.[78]
Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty was expelled from the Dáil after trying to question the appointment of a new Secretary General at the Department of Finance.[80]
The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission ruled that there were no grounds for any criminal case against any of five officers involved in an incident on 31 March 2011 known as the "rape tape" controversy, resulting from the inadvertent video recording of a sergeant in a patrol car joking about the rape of two women.[82]
2 May – Cardinal Seán Brady was embroiled in controversy over a BBC television programme which contained allegations that he failed to act after one sex abuse survivor gave him a list in 1975 of other children being abused by Father Brendan Smyth.[85]
The Abbey Theatre announced a nine-week closure when asbestos was discovered in the building.[88]
Archaeologists announced discovery in the Burren of evidence of settlement from 6000BCE.[89]
11 May – President Higgins received the Freedom of Galway from Mayor Hildegarde Naughton.[90]
14 May – While canvassing for votes in Athlone, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told an unemployed bus driver to "get a job". The man later requested an apology and retraction, calling Kenny "a smug, arrogant git". In the same town, Kenny had an angry exchange with a man who said his son had been forced to emigrate.[91]
16 May – The Garda Síochána destroyed the Occupy Galway camp in an overnight raid.[92]
17 May
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was heckled and booed by anti-austerity treaty protesters in Galway as he attended a breakfast briefing.[93]
Following the UN Committee Against Torture's condemnation of the Irish government's failure to acknowledge and assist former detainees of the ten Catholic-run Magdalene laundries, the Justice for Magdalenes campaign group announced its discovery that women were transferred from State-funded mother and baby homes to Magdalene laundries, where they were held against their will and without their children.[95]
5 June – Hundreds of Bord na Móna workers went on strike in a dispute over pay.[97]
6 June – The second-largest earthquake on record in Britain or Ireland, an offshore magnitude4 tremor west of Belmullet, shook the counties of Mayo, Sligo, and Galway.[98]
7 June – Former members of the Defence Forces demonstrated in Dublin over malaria medication they were given on overseas peacekeeping duties which they say has caused them chronic health problems.[99]
11 June – A tornado 700 metres high was seen near Buncrana in County Donegal, one of the biggest ever recorded in Ireland.[102][103]
13 June – Justice Minister Alan Shatter spoke of "Londonderry" in a Dáil debate.[104] There were calls for him to resign his office amid the ensuing controversy.[105]
17 June – Pope Benedict XVI delivered a pre-recorded address about the sex abuse scandal on the final day of the 50th Eucharistic Congress.[106]
20 June – An independent review into the deaths of children who were in the care of, or who were known to the Health Service Executive (HSE), was published.[108][109] The following day, TánaisteEamon Gilmore stated in the Dáil that a referendum on the rights of the child would be held in the autumn.[110]
21 June – Turf cutters staged an overnight protest on a bog in County Galway.[111]
21 June – More than 100,000 people, including social welfare recipients, were left impoverished after being affected by an Ulster Bank delay in processing money.[112]
24 June – Ulster Bank opened branches on a Sunday for the first time as the payments crisis affecting the institution continued unabated.[113]
25 June – Ulster Bank announced its money problems would not now be solved this week, with monthly salaries now in danger of being infected.[114][115]
10 July – Health Minister James Reilly was named on a debt defaulters' list to the tune of €1.9 million.[119][120] This was described as "unprecedented" for a government minister.[121]
13 July – It was revealed that Fine Gael Senator Fidelma Healy Eames boarded the Galway to Dublin train without a ticket. A fellow passenger alleged that Healy Eames said "she is a Senator and that she makes the law" when an inspector asked her to produce her ticket.[122]
18 July – Former TV3 News Western Correspondent Jenny McCudden was named as the new editor of The Sligo Champion, becoming the first female to fill the position in the newspaper's 176-year history.[123]
26 July – Galway Circuit Civil Court ordered the husband of Fidelma Healy Eames to pay more than €12,000 in unpaid fees to a tradesman employed to carry out renovations at the Healy Eames residence in County Galway. The tradesman launched a lawsuit in 2010 against the Healy Eameses for thousands of euros in unpaid fees.[124]
27 July – During a case at Claremorris District Court Judge Mary Devins, wife of former Fianna Fáil TD Jimmy Devins, described social welfare as a Polish charity, sparking national outrage and a formal complaint to the police over "the possibility that she is in breach of the prohibition in the Incitement to Hatred Act from 1989".[125][126]
August
2 August – It was confirmed that a car belonging to Fidelma Healy Eames was seized in July for not having a current tax disc.[127]
17 August – Staff at Letterkenny General Hospital were informed of the closure of County Donegal's only gynaecology ward. Nursing unions, patients and staff reacted with shock to the news.[129]
20 August
Three investigations into a nursing home in Oughterard, County Galway, found most residents had not washed for at least a month, were being starved and lived in squalid conditions.[130]
Fidelma Healy Eames was involved in controversy over her decision to charge a state agency the cost of a plane ticket for her husband to accompany her on a hotel break to Kenya. When news of this was reported in the Irish media, Healy Eames said she would pay back the money within "a couple of weeks".[131]
22 August – On the 90th anniversary of the death of revolutionary Michael Collins, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny gave the commemoration speech at Béal na Bláth, the first serving head of government to do so. He also erroneously credited Collins with bringing Vladimir Lenin to Ireland.[132]
27 August – The board of Independent News & Media elected Cork businessman Leslie Buckley, a close associate of Denis O'Brien, as its new chairman, replacing James Osborne who was ousted in April.[135]
28 August
Amateur astronomer David Grennan discovered his second supernova from his observatory in Raheny two years after he discovered his first one. He is the only one ever to have discovered supernovae from Ireland.[136]
Hundreds of jobs were lost when College Freight, operating as Target Express, the country's largest privately owned transport company, announced it had ceased trading. Workers began sit-ins in Carlow, Cork and Limerick.[137]
Dublin City Council voted overwhelmingly in favour of full marriage rights for same-sex couples. Bill Tormey, a Fine Gael councillor, caused an uproar after claiming it was impossible to equate homosexual unions with heterosexual ones, as well as claiming that only heterosexual couples were capable of producing children.[139]
7 September – Stephen Rae was appointed as editor of the Irish Independent newspaper.[141]
8 September – A volley of shots was fired as hundreds of people attended the funeral in Dublin of Real IRA dissident Alan Ryan.[142]
11 September
District Court judge Séamus Hughes was criticised and asked to resign over comments on the ethnic backgrounds of those before him in court, having described some as "neanderthals".[143][144]
Michael Hegarty, a Fine Gael councillor, resigned as chairman of County Cork's Joint Policing Committee and as leader of Fine Gael on Cork County Council due to a drink-driving charge related to a road traffic incident.[145]
15 September – The Irish Daily Star newspaper published topless photographs of Kate Middleton. The editor Michael O'Kane defended the publication. Media boss Richard Desmond announced his intention to close down the tabloid.[146] O'Kane was later suspended.[147]
17 September – Clerys, one of Ireland's best known department stores, was put into receivership.[148]
21 September – A spectacular breaking fireball strewed a trail of burning fragments across the night sky in Ireland, and was seen also in Britain and the Netherlands.[149]
30 September – Dolphin Discs, a record shop on Talbot Street in Dublin that had existed since the early 1970s, closed as a result of the loss of business due to the rise of digital downloads; "as much as (a) 40% (loss) in the past three years".[152]
October
9 October
Thousands of farmers marched through Dublin city in protest at government cuts.[153]
A walkout occurred during a Public Accounts Committee meeting with the Health Service Executive when health officials were told they were not fit for office.[154]
5 November – Students marched against austerity in Cork.[156]
8 November
Two days ahead of the children's referendum, the Supreme Court – ruling against the government's distribution of information on the referendum – found the government had breached the 1995 McKenna judgement requiring that referendums be explained to the public in an unbiased manner. The referendum's website was immediately taken down.[157]
Ten thousand people marched against austerity in Dublin, amid calls for a general strike to shut down the country.[164]
Irish Daily Star editor Michael O'Kane resigned over his role in the publication of topless photographs of Kate Middleton.[165]
28 November
Students marched through Letterkenny, and distributed a thousand letters of protest to the office of their local government (Fine Gael) TD, Joe McHugh.[166]
An X Case Bill, which proposed legislating for abortion in the event of risk to a woman's life, was defeated by 101–27 in the Dáil.[167]
December
4 December – Independent politician Mattie McGrath took part in a sit-in at the offices of Friends First Finance in support of a farmer being pursued by the financial institution.[168][169] TDs Michael McCarthy (Labour), Tom Hayes and Patrick O'Donovan (both of Fine Gael) and Michael Moynihan and Dara Calleary (both of Fianna Fáil), while seated in the Dáil bar, made a hoax call to Mattie McGrath pretending they were a pizza restaurant, offering free pizza to those partaking in the sit-in.[170]
5 December – The Budget was announced for 2013.[171]
13 December – Labour Party chairman Colm Keaveney voted against the Social Welfare Bill and was expelled from the parliamentary party.[172]
1 January – Copyright restrictions on James Joyce's major works were lifted.[177]
February – James Joyce's children's story The Cats of Copenhagen was published for the first time by Ithys Press in Dublin.[178]
February – A new book of poetry by President Higgins was strongly criticised by Professor Kevin Kiely, who said the President of Ireland "can be accused of crimes against literature".[179]
March – An Hobad, a translation of The Hobbit into Irish, went on sale.[180]
10 June – Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa visited Ireland. He spoke at the Dublin Writers' Festival and at the Instituto Cervantes about his novel about Roger Casement, El sueño del celta, newly translated into English as The Dream of the Celt.[183]
11 January – Kieran Behan became the second gymnast representing Ireland to qualify for an Olympic Games, despite expectation that he would never walk again.[200][201][202]
5 August – Team Ireland won its first Olympic medal of the 2012 Summer Olympics as John Joe Nevin defeated Mexico's Óscar Valdez in his bantamweight division quarter-final bout, to guarantee himself at least a bronze medal.[206]
6 August – Katie Taylor won her quarter-final bout against Team GB's Natasha Jonas, and guaranteed herself at least a bronze medal.[207] Fans produced record noise levels.[208]
Paddy Barnes won his quarter-final bout against India's Devendro Singh, and guaranteed himself at least a bronze medal. In doing so, he became the first Irish boxer to win medals at two Olympic Games.
9 August – Katie Taylor won her final bout against Russia's Sofya Ochigava, securing Olympic Gold.[212]
10 August –
Paddy Barnes lost his semi-final bout against China's Zou Shiming.[213]
John Joe Nevin won his semi-final bout against Cuba's Lázaro Álvarez, and guaranteed himself at least a silver medal.[214]
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