Events

• 19 February - The DeLorean Car factory in Belfast is put into receivership.
• 23 February - Attacks on shipping in Lough Foyle (1981-1982): Glasgow-registered coal ship St. Bedan is bombed and sunk by a Provisional Irish Republican Army unit driving a hijacked pilot boat in Lough Foyle.
• 6 April - James Prior launches 'rolling devolution' for Northern Ireland.
• 10 May - Seamus Mallon of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) is appointed to Seanad ireann.
• 20 October - Polling takes place in the Assembly elections in Northern Ireland.
• 21 October - Sinn F in win first seats on Northern Ireland Assembly, with Gerry Adams winning the Belfast West seat.^[1]
• 27 October - Three RUC officers are killed by an IRA bomb near Lurgan.^[2]
• 6 December - Droppin Well bombing: The Irish National Liberation Army kills seventeen people in a bomb attack at the Droppin Well Inn, Ballykelly, County Londonderry.

Arts and literature

• Graham Reid's play The Hidden Curriculum is produced.
• Anne Devlin wins the Hennessy Literary Award for her short story, Passages, which is adapted for television as A Woman Calling.^[3]
• Medbh McGuckian's poetry collection The Flower Master is published.

Sport

Football

• Football World Cup

• • Group stage
    • Northern Ireland 0-0 Yugoslavia

• • • Northern Ireland 1-1 Honduras

• • • Northern Ireland 1-0 Spain

• • • • Northern Ireland qualify for the quarterfinals of the World Cup

• • Second group stage

• • • Northern Ireland 2-2 Austria

• • • Northern Ireland 1-0 France

• • • Northern Ireland are knocked out at the quarter final stage of the World Cup

• Irish League

Winners: Linfield

• Irish Cup

Winners: Linfield 2 - 1 Coleraine

Motorcycling

• Joey Dunlop wins the Formula One motorcycle world championship for the first time.

Rugby Union

• The Ireland rugby team wins the Triple Crown for the first time since 1949 by beating Scotland 21-12 on 21 February, having already beaten Wales and England.

Snooker

• Alex Higgins wins the World Professional Snooker Championship for the second time.

Births

• 27 January - Brian Close, footballer.
• 25 February - Chris Baird, footballer.
• 1 July - Kiera Chaplin, actress and model, granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin.
• 10 July - Mark Morrison, ice hockey player.
• 5 October - R n n Clarke, Gaelic footballer.

Full date unknown

• Jamie Dornan, model, musician and actor.
• Daith McKay, Sinn F in MLA.
• M ire Nic an Bhaird, teacher and Irish language activist.

Deaths

• 5 February - George Crothers, cricketer (b.1909).
• 26 March - Sam Kydd, actor (b.1915).
• 14 August - Patrick Magee, actor (b.1922).
• 16 November - Lenny Murphy, loyalist paramilitary and leader of the Shankill Butchers (b.1952).

References