1992 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 committing 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.
*March 15 - Proinsias De Rossa leads a breakaway group from The Workers Party to form what would shortly become Democratic Left. The majority of the breakaway group including De Rossa would later join the Irish Labour Party.
*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 referendums 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.

port

Gaelic football

*Donegal GAA beat Dublin GAA 0-18 to 0-14 to win their first All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

Golf

*Carroll's Irish Open is won by Nick Faldo (England).

Hurling

*Kilkenny GAA beat Cork GAA 3-10 to 1-12 in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship final.

Olympics

*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.

occer

*5 April - Shelbourne win their first League of Ireland Championship for thirty years.

Births

*Sophie Vavasseur, actress.

Deaths

*9 January - Bill Naughton, playwright and author (b.1910).
*20 March - Michael MacLaverty, novelist (b.1904).
*28 April - Francis Bacon, painter (b.1909).
*12 May - Joseph Raftery, archaeologist.
*13 May - F. E. McWilliam, sculptor (b.1909).
*20 May - James Tully, former Labour Party TD and Cabinet Minister (b.1915).
*3 June - Patrick Peyton, the Rosary Priest (b.1909).
*6 July - Bryan Guinness, 2nd Lord Moyne, lawyer and poet.
*21 July - Aloys Fleischmann, composer and musicologist (b.1910).
*17 August - Tom Nolan, Fianna Fáil TD, Minister of State and MEP (b.1921).

Full date unknown

*Benjamin Guinness, 3rd Earl of Iveagh, peer and Seanad member (b.1937).
*Aiden MacCarthy, doctor, RAF medical officer, captured by the Japanese during the Second World War (b.1914).
*Matt O'Mahoney, international soccer player (b.1913).
*Peter Rice, structural engineer (b.1935).
*Jim Young, Cork hurler (b.1915).