2023 In Ireland

Events during the year 2023 in Ireland.

2023 In Ireland
2023
in
Ireland
Centuries:
Decades:
See also:2023 in Northern Ireland
Other events of 2023
List of years in Ireland

Incumbents

2023 In Ireland 
President Michael D. Higgins

Events

January

  • 3 January – There were 931 patients without beds in Irish hospitals as the trolley crisis reached a record high.
  • 4 January – The Irish data privacy board fined Meta Platforms €390 million for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation on Facebook and Instagram.
  • 19 January – Argos announced its intention to close all stores and operations in the Republic of Ireland at the end of June with the loss of 580 jobs.
  • 21 January – Thousands of people marched in Limerick to protest against continued overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick.

February

March

April

  • 7 April – It was announced that the Leaving Certificate grinds school, the Institute of Education in Dublin with 7,000 pupils, founded by Ray Kearns in 1969, had been sold to a British educational company.
  • 9 April – An emergency was declared and flights into Dublin Airport were suspended briefly when the nose landing gear of a Ryanair flight from Liverpool to Dublin experienced a problem during landing. Four other arriving flights were diverted to Shannon Airport.
  • 17 April – Gerry Hutch was found not guilty of the 2016 murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel.
  • 19 April – The 38th Cúirt International Festival of Literature opened in Galway.
  • 22 April – It was announced that an investigator with the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) had attended a party celebrating the acquittal of Gerry Hutch the previous Monday, and that he was an associate of a relation of Hutch. The officer resigned when it became known, and GSOC intitiated an investigation.
  • 23 April – An incorporeal Cabinet meeting agreed to send an Emergency Consular Assistance Team to Sudan, via Djibouti – some of them leaving on the night – on a mission to evacuate 150 Irish people and their families from the armed conflict there. The team consisted of officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and members of the Defence Forces, including Army Ranger Wing personnel.
  • 24 April – Fifty Irish citizens were evacuated on French and Spanish aircraft from Khartoum in Sudan to safety in Djibouti. It was announced that Ireland had purchased two Airbus C295 maritime patrol aircraft capable of future airlift missions, while Airbus will supply an additional military transport aircraft to Ireland in 2025.
  • 25 April
    • Seventy-two Irish citizens and their families were rescued with the help of France and Spain from violence in Sudan to safety in Djibouti and Jordan.
    • An Irish metal and polymer lunar soil experiment produced by the Dublin City University School of Chemical Sciences was lost when the Japanese Hakuto-R Mission 1 Moon landing spacecraft carrying the Rashid Lunar Rover built by the United Arab Emirates stopped communicating during the final moments of an automated Moon landing attempt in the Atlas Crater.
  • 26 April – Sixteen more Irish citizens and their family members were rescued since the day before via Djibouti, Jordan, and Cyprus, from the fighting which broke out on 15 April in Sudan. More than 100 Irish people remained in the country.
  • 30 April – After evacuating 209 Irish people and their families in the past week, the Emergency Civil Assistance Team was withdrawn from Sudan.

May

  • 6 May – Michael D. Higgins and Leo Varadkar, respectively, became the first Irish president and taoiseach in history to attend the coronation of a British monarch, at Westminster Abbey in London.
  • 9 May – The Irish band Wild Youth failed to qualify for the final of the Eurovision Song Contest.
  • 11 May
    • EirGrid announced plans for four major wind farm projects, three in the Irish Sea off the coasts of Counties Dublin and Wicklow and one off the Atlantic coast, in Connemara. The project is part of the largest ever renewable energy project in Ireland, intended to power six million homes by 2030.
    • The High Court ruled that the diseased leg of an elderly man with dementia should not be amputated against his wishes in an attempt to save his life.
  • 13 May – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Justice Simon Harris condemned scenes during a stand-off between pro-and anti-immigrant protesters in Dublin and a homeless asylum seekers' camp was destroyed by fire.
  • 18 May
    • Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed his dismay for a 14-year-old boy who was subjected to an unprovoked homophobic assault by a group of teenage boys in Navan and humiliated by having the video posted online.
    • A 17-year-old boy who was attacked by a group of people using golf clubs in Bluebell, Dublin remained in a critical condition in hospital and in a coma.
  • 19 May – Five teenage boys were arrested by Gardaí investigating the homophobic attack on a 14-year-old boy in Navan. All were released without charge.
  • 20 May – Patrick Kielty was confirmed as the new host of RTÉ's The Late Late Show, taking over from Ryan Tubridy and becoming the show's fourth permanent presenter.
  • 21 May – A 21-year-old woman died after she was struck by a Garda car in County Donegal.
  • 24 May – Minister for Education Norma Foley announced that Leaving Certificate results would be released on Friday 25 August, the earliest since 2019.
  • 26 May
    • The number of homeless people in Ireland exceeded 12,000 for the first time.
    • The mother of an 18-year-old who killed himself in 2021 sued anti-vaccine campaigner Gemma O'Doherty for misrepresenting and sensationalising his death in the freesheet, The Irish Light, last year to support conspiracy theory about the COVID-19 vaccine.
  • 30 May – Ireland's 2022 census figures from the CSO show an older population, increased diversity, decreased religiosity, and a population surpassing five million for the first time since the great famine.

June

  • 7 June – A record 135,033 students began their Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate exams.
  • 17 June – A Status Orange warning was issued for 12 counties in the west, mid-west and midlands for thunderstorms, which resulted in 10,000 homes and businesses without power, two lifeguards taken to hospital after being struck by lightning in Kerry and localised flooding in a number of areas.
  • 19 June – President Higgins apologised to Louise Richardson, the Chair of the upcoming Consultative Forum on International Security Policy, for a "throwaway remark" he made in relation to her DBE, amongst other remarks criticising the forum, and a potential "drift" towards NATO.
  • 21 June – Ahead of the unfolding secret payment scandal, the Director General of RTÉ, Dee Forbes, was suspended from her employment by the RTÉ Board, and later issued a statement defending her record.
  • 22 June
    • The postal service An Post moved from its historic headquarters in the General Post Office building on O'Connell Street in Dublin to new premises at North Wall Quay.
    • RTÉ admitted that it paid its top presenter Ryan Tubridy €345,000 more than publicly declared between 2017 and 2022, in what the chair of its board said was a "serious breach of trust with the public".
  • 24 June – All 30 remaining Argos stores in Ireland closed permanently at 5pm.
  • 26 June – Dee Forbes resigned as Director-General of RTÉ with immediate effect, following ongoing controversy over undisclosed payments to broadcaster Ryan Tubridy.

July

  • 2 July – Tributes were paid to two Leaving Cert classmates who died while holidaying with friends on the Greek island of Ios.
  • 3 July
    • A 30-year-old Irish man was arrested following the violent death of a 36-year-old Irish woman at a hotel in the Spanish holiday location of Salou.
    • Seven GAA fans were arrested and 15 others were ejected after a fight broke out on Hill 16 at Croke Park on 1 July, during the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final match between Armagh and Monaghan.
  • 4 July – Media Minister Catherine Martin announced an independent "root and branch examination" into RTÉ.
  • 7 July – Iarnród Éireann warned passengers to be aware of people impersonating revenue protection officers on their trains.
  • 10 July – New RTÉ Director-General Kevin Bakhurst stood down the RTÉ Board, and appointed a new temporary leadership team.
  • 16 July – The European Commission finds components manufacturer by Enniscorthy based electronics company Taoglas in Russian bombs used in Ukraine attacks.
  • 18 July – An Irish father and son from County Laois were killed following a road crash while on a family holiday in Turkey.
  • 19 July – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar paid a surprise visit to embattled Ukraine where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) Ruslan Stefanchuk, and members of the Irish community.
  • 20 July – Minister for Justice Helen McEntee condemned an unprovoked attack on a US tourist who suffered serious eye and head injuries after being punched, kicked and knocked to the ground by a group of youths in Dublin city centre.
  • 23 July – A 14-year-old boy was arrested and charged in connection with the serious assault of a US tourist in Dublin city centre.
  • 25 July – An All Ireland Rail Review was published to reopen all closed railway lines along the island of Ireland.
  • 31 July – Two teenage girls, aged 16 and 17, died and three other people were injured after a serious road crash as they travelled to a debs ball in County Monaghan.

August

  • 9 August – The Health Service Executive confirmed that EG.5, a new strain of COVID-19, had been detected in Ireland.
  • 11 August – RTÉ Director-General Kevin Bakhurst confirmed that legal firm McCann Fitzgerald had begun a review into voluntary redundancy schemes at the broadcaster in 2017 and 2021.
  • 12 August – Three tourists from the UK were hospitalised after an assault in Temple Bar, with calls for public order gardaí to patrol every night following a number of high-profile assaults in the capital.
  • 15 August – Bank of Ireland suffered a major technology breakdown which allowed customers who had no money in their accounts to get access to funds, prompting queues at some ATMs around the country, with Gardaí controversially deployed in some areas.
  • 18–22 August – The Rose of Tralee International Festival was held, and won by New York Rose Roisin Wiley, giving New York its first victory in the competition since 2007, and the first US winner since 2016.
  • 25 August
    • Over 62,000 students received their Leaving Certificate results, which were artificially boosted by an average of almost 8%.
    • Four young people (a man in his early 20s and three women in their teens) died after a car carrying teenagers celebrating their Leaving Certificate results spun out of control and overturned in Clonmel, County Tipperary.
  • 28 August – A technical problem with the UK's air traffic service left thousands of airline passengers stranded in Ireland and around Europe causing delays and cancellations.
  • 30 August – The Electoral Commission submitted its Constituency Review Report 2023 to the Oireachtas. It recommended that the number of Teachtaí Dála be increased from 160 to 174, and that the number of Dáil constituencies be increased from 39 to 43. The increases take account of a population rise of 8% since 2016.

September

  • 7 September – During an appearance on RTÉ News at One, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he believes Ireland is "on the path to unification" and that there will be a United Ireland in his lifetime.
  • 26 September – Officials recovered 2,253 kg of cocaine after boarding MV Matthew, a Panamanian-registered ship, off the coast of Ireland. The operation was described by Gardaí as the largest drugs seizure in Ireland's history.
  • 27 September – Using Dáil privilege, Mary Lou McDonald revealed details of a letter confirming a meeting between clinicians and a representative from Children's Health Ireland, concerning experimental spinal surgeries on children at Temple Street Hospital. Nineteen children had poor surgical outcomes following surgery at Temple Street, and one of children later died. Whether parental consent had been obtained is in dispute.
  • 28 September – TikTok announced that it had shut down a misinformation network of 72 accounts targeting Ireland, that had over 94,000 followers, saying "the operators of the accounts posted divisive views in a bid to intensify social conflict."
  • 29 September
    • Gardaí launched a murder investigation after a woman in her 40s died following a violent attack at her home in County Offaly. A 16-year-old boy, known to the victim, was arrested at the scene. The attack was filmed and posted on social media.
    • Homelessness figures were released, showing that there were 12,691 people homeless in Ireland in August – a 17% increase year-on-year – including a record 3,895 homeless children.

October

November

  • 9 November – Jozef Puška was convicted of the murder of Ashling Murphy.
  • 12 November – Met Éireann issued a Status Red wind warning for 14 counties, ahead of Storm Debi warning of a "potential danger to life".
  • 15 November – The Dáil voted 85–55 to reject a motion by the Social Democrats party to expel the Israeli Ambassador, Dana Erlich. A Sinn Féin party motion to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court because of its actions in Gaza was also defeated, 77–58. Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns argued during the debate that "Israel is killing with impunity. According to the World Health Organisation, Gaza is now a graveyard for children." She also stated, "Words of condemnation are not enough. We need action. There must be consequences for the crimes perpetrated by Israel on a captive civilian population in Gaza." Deputy James Browne (Fianna Fáil party) claimed in the debate that the Social Democrats' motion "seeks to push Ireland to the margins of international opinion". Meanwhile, a large crowd outside Leinster House called for the ambassador's expulsion.
  • 17 November – Jozef Puška was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Ashling Murphy.
  • 18 November – Gardaí began a murder investigation after a 23-year-old man was shot dead in a gangland shooting in Finglas, Dublin.
  • 21 November – The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee sought approval from the Cabinet for the repeal of antique censorship laws. The initiative was a response to far-reaching developments in community values since Censorship of Publications legislation was recommended by the Committee on Evil Literature, established in 1926. Modern laws will continue to allow control of indecent or obscene publications, including child abuse material, while permitting information on contraception, abortion and divorce.
  • 23 November
  • 24 November – Latest figures showed that homelessness hit new records: 9,188 adults and 3,991 children accessed emergency accommodation in October 2023, bringing the total to 13,179 people.
  • 25 November – The nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl, Emily Hand, was released from captivity by Hamas and reunited with her father after being held hostage in Palestine for 50 days. Taoiseach Varadkar and Tánaiste Martin welcomed the news.
  • 26 November

December

  • 1 December – Ireland's first space satellite, EIRSAT-1, was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in the United States, propelled by a Falcon 9 rocket.
  • 5 December – The Minister for Integration Roderic O'Gorman announced that Constitutional referendums on family matters will take place on International Women's Day, 8 March, next year.
  • 6 December – A no confidence motion in Minister for Justice Helen McEntee was tabled in the Dáil by Sinn Féin and countered with a government motion expressing confidence in the minister. The government's confidence motion won, with 83 TDs voting that they had confidence in the minister and 63 TDs voting that they did not.
  • 8 December – The funeral of singer Shane MacGowan took place at St Mary's of the Rosary Catholic Church in Nenagh, County Tipperary.
  • 10 December – Property and vehicles were damaged after a tornado struck Leitrim Village in County Leitrim.
  • 14 December – Twelve people, including eight Transition Year students, were injured in a serious crash between a school bus and a truck in Kilkenny.
  • 16 December – Gymnast Rhys McClenaghan was voted 2023 RTÉ Sports Person of the Year.
  • 17 December – Gardaí began investigating a "criminal damage incident" after a fire broke out at a disused hotel in Rosscahill, Oughterard that was due to accommodate asylum seekers.
  • 20 December – Tánaiste Micheál Martin announced government plans to "initiate an inter-State case against the United Kingdom under the European Convention on Human Rights" over provisions in the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 which offers immunity from prosecution for certain Troubles-era related offences.
  • 22 December – Circuit Court judge Gerard O'Brien was convicted of the sexual assault of six young men when he was a secondary school teacher during the 1990s. O'Brien is also a former Fianna Fáil party councillor and former State solicitor. He was born with no arms and just one leg as a result of the drug thalidomide.
  • 24 December
    • A man in his 20s died and a second man was seriously injured in a gangland gun attack at a restaurant in Blanchardstown, Dublin.
    • Two men appeared in court in Limerick in connection with a seizure of 300kg of cocaine worth an estimated €21 million.
  • 28 December – Met Éireann recorded the warmest year on record, with the overall average temperature for Ireland rising above 11°C (51.8°F) for the first time.

Sport

Association football

Men's International friendly matches

  • 22 March – Ireland 3–2 Latvia.
  • 21 November – Ireland 1–1 New Zealand. The Republic of Ireland team manager, Stephen Kenny, was fired from his position, after a three-year tenure, by the Football Association of Ireland the day after the match against New Zealand. His record as manager was 11 wins, 12 draws, and 17 defeats in 40 matches.

Men's Euro 2024 qualification

  • 27 March – Ireland 0–1 France.
  • 16 June – Greece 2–1 Ireland. During the match in Athens, Greek supporters were asked repeatedly over the public address system to stop shining laser beams at the Irish footballers.
  • 19 June – Ireland 3–0 Gibraltar.
  • 7 September – France 2–0 Ireland.
  • 10 September – Ireland 1–2 Netherlands.
  • 13 October – Ireland 0–2 Greece.
  • 16 October – Gibraltar 0–4 Ireland.
  • 18 November – Netherlands 1–0 Ireland.

Men's Euro 2028 bid

  • 12 April – The UK–Ireland bid to host the Euro 2028 football tournament was submitted to UEFA, with the Aviva Stadium proposed in Dublin (instead of Croke Park), alongside a redeveloped Casement Park in Belfast.
  • 4 October – Turkey withdrew its bid to host Euro 2028 leaving the only remaining bid unopposed – the joint UK–Ireland one.
  • 10 October – UEFA officially approved the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales as Euro 2028 co-hosts.

Women's international friendly matches

  • 22 February – China 0–0 Ireland.
  • 8 April – USA 2–0 Ireland.
  • 11 April – USA 1–0 Ireland.
  • 22 June – Ireland 3–2 Zambia.
  • 6 July – Ireland 0–3 France.
  • 14 July – A friendly pre-World Cup warmup match against Colombia in Brisbane was abandoned after 20 minutes following harsh incidents by the South Americans against Denise O'Sullivan and Ruesha Littlejohn which earned the offenders yellow cards. O'Sullivan went to hospital with an injury inflicted by Colombian Daniela Caracas who said after the match that the Irish players "are little girls" ("Son unas nenas"), and "let them eat shit" ("que coman mierda").

Women's 2023 FIFA World Cup

  • 20 July – Australia 1–0 Ireland (Sydney).
  • 26 July – Canada 2–1 Ireland (Perth). Ireland eliminated.
  • 31 July – Ireland 0–0 Nigeria (Brisbane).

2023–24 UEFA Women's Nations League B

  • 23 September – Ireland 3–0 Northern Ireland.
  • 26 September – Hungary 0–4 Ireland.
  • 27 October – Ireland 5–1 Albania.
  • 31 October – Albania 0–1 Ireland.
  • 1 December – Ireland 1–0 Hungary.
  • 5 December – Northern Ireland 1–6 Ireland.

Gaelic games

2023 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

2023 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship

Rugby union

2023 Six Nations Championship

2023 Rugby World Cup warm-up matches

  • 5 August – Ireland 33–17 Italy (Dublin).
  • 19 August – Ireland 29–10 England (Dublin).
  • 26 August – Ireland 17–13 Samoa (Bayonne).

2023 Rugby World Cup

Deaths

January

2023 In Ireland 
Micheál Mac Gréil

February

2023 In Ireland 
Niamh Bhreathnach
2023 In Ireland 
Mick Burns

March

2023 In Ireland 
Rita O'Hare

April

2023 In Ireland 
Craig Breen

May

2023 In Ireland 
Derek Keating
2023 In Ireland 
Seán Keane

June

2023 In Ireland 
Paul Coghlan
2023 In Ireland 
Christy Dignam

July

2023 In Ireland 
Sinéad O'Connor

August

September

2023 In Ireland 
Michael Gambon

October

November

2023 In Ireland 
Shane MacGowan

December

2023 In Ireland 
Jonathan Irwin
2023 In Ireland 
Patrick Walsh

References

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2023 In Ireland Incumbents2023 In Ireland Events2023 In Ireland Sport2023 In Ireland Deaths2023 In Ireland

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