January 8
1871 – James Craig, Ist Viscount Craigavon, Unionist politician and PM of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1940, is born in Belfast
1873 – Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain is founded
1916 – Evacuation of Gallipoli Peninsula in the Dardanelles is completed; there are100,000 casualties, mostly Australian, New Zealanders and Irish, in the eight-month campaign
1922 – Arthur Griffin is elected second president of Ireland by Dáil Éireann
1998 – The first licensed drug to treat mild to moderately severe Alzheimer’s disease is launched in Ireland
1999 – The British Government comes under pressure to stop the early release of prisoners in Northern Ireland after an upsurge in paramilitary shootings and beatings
2002 – Former Soviet leader Gorbachev sinks a pint of Guinness with Dublin Lord Mayor Michael Mulcahy in the famous Doheny and Nesbitt pub in Baggot Street.
2007 – Northern ireland’s Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine dies at age 53 after suffering a heart attack and later a stroke and a brain haemorrhage. A former UVF prisoner and a key figure in brokering the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire of 1994, a party statement is quoted as saying: “Unionism has lost the most progressive voice of this generation. Politics has lost a statesman. Our peace process has lost its most optimistic advocate and Ulster has lost a devoted son.”


January 9
1642 – 30 Catholics are killed by the Scottish garrison and English settlers at Island Magee, Co. Antrim
1922 – Arthur Griffith is elected Taoiseach of Dáil Éireann after Eamon de Valera steps down
1952 – Birth of Danny Morrison, former publicity officer for Sinn Féin, and now a novelist
1962 – Birth of Ray Houghton, footballer
1998 – Mo Mowlam, risks her political future in talks with loyalist paramilitaries inside the Maze prison in a desperate bid to save the troubled Northern Ireland peace process
2002 – Former soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, accepts the honour of being named the 71st Freeman of Dublin, following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela and members of U2
2002 – Police are attacked with bricks and bombs by rioters from both sides of the sectarian divide, as bigotry and violence flare again at the Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne, north Belfast.


January 10
1922 – Arthur Griffith elected President of Irish Free State
1969 – Civil rights leaders in Northern Ireland defying police orders and refuse to abandon their planned march through Newry in Co. Down
2003 – Feared loyalist paramilitary chief Johnny Mad Dog Adair is arrested and sent back to jail. Adair will not now be released from prison until January 2005


January 11
1921 – The British government announces that any unauthorised person found in possession of arms, ammunition or explosives is liable to be executed
1970 – IRA splits into Officials and Provisionals (Provos)
1999 – The Democratic Unionist Party warns that it would mount a legal challenge if Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam moves to announce a power-sharing Executive without the Assembly approving the new government structures

January 12
1885 – Thomas Ashe, patriot and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Lispole, Co. Kerry
1998 – Political master strokes by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair breath new life into the Northern peace process with a blueprint for peace which could replace the Anglo-Irish Agreement with a three-stranded government for the North

January 13
1800 – Daniel O’Connell makes his first public speech, opposing Union with England
1998 – Northern Ireland takes another giant step towards peace after the political parties at Stormont accept the British and Irish governments blueprint as the basis for negotiation
2001 – One and a half copies of the most important piece of documentation of the 20th century in Ireland, the Declaration of Independence, is sold to a New York collector for £56,000

January 14
1937 – De Valera’s new constitution, with its assertions of Ireland as a sovereign 32-county state, and its definition of Catholic morality and “women’s place” is approved
2000 – Unionist politicians are furious after Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams claims that there could be a united Ireland by the year 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising