# 1998 in Ireland

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Events from the year 1998 in Ireland.

## Incumbents

* President: Mary McAleese
* Taoiseach: Bertie Ahern (FF)
* Tánaiste: Mary Harney (PD)
* Minister for Finance: Charlie McCreevy (FF)
* Chief Justice: Liam Hamilton
* Dáil: 28th
* Seanad: 21st

## Events
### January

* 1 January – The Vocational Education Committees of the towns of Bray, Drogheda, Sligo, Tralee and Wexford were abolished.
* 14 January – The Mahon Planning Tribunal opened in Dublin Castle.

### February

* 27 February – Ireland qualified for entry into the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union.

### March

* 15 March – Former Fine Gael party minister Hugh Coveney died in a fall from a cliff in County Cork.

### April

* 10 April (Good Friday) – The British and Irish governments and all the political parties in Northern Ireland (except the Democratic Unionists) signed the Belfast Agreement (also called Good Friday Agreement).

### May

* 22 May – The Good Friday Agreement was endorsed in a referendum by people north and south of the Irish border.

### July

* 1 July – The new Northern Ireland Assembly first met, in "shadow" form; Reg Empey and Seamus Mallon were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively.
* 11–13 July – The opening stages (Grand Départ) of the 1998 Tour de France were held in Ireland.

### August

* 15 August – Omagh bombing: 29 people died in a car bomb explosion near the centre of Omagh, County Tyrone by the Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA).

### September

* 4 September – President Bill Clinton of the United States began his second official visit to the island of Ireland (his first being in 1995).
* 20 September - The TV3 television station was launched.

### November

* 26 November – Tony Blair became the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Oireachtas.
* 30 November – Unemployment fell by 20% with the number of people in work rising by 100,000.

### December

* 12 December – Members of the Labour Party and Democratic Left agreed to merge.
* 26 December – Great Boxing Day Storm ('Hurricane Stephen'): Severe gale-force winds hit northwest Ireland causing heavy disruption to services.
* 31 December – The punt currency was traded for the last time as the euro currency was launched.

## Arts and literature

* 28 February – Actor and comedian Dermot Morgan died suddenly in London.
* 25 May – Patrick McCabe's novel Breakfast on Pluto was published.
* 3 July – The boyband Westlife was formed.
* 28 August – Maeve Binchy's novel Tara Road was published.
* 20 September – The TV3 television channel went on the air.
* 7 October – Marina Carr's drama By the Bog of Cats opened at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
* 24 December – Gay Byrne broadcast his final radio show, from St Stephen's Green, Dublin.
* John Montague became the first occupant of the Ireland Chair of Poetry.
* Garry Hynes became the first woman to win a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (The Beauty Queen of Leenane) on Broadway.
* Brendan Graham's Great Famine novel The Whitest Flower was published.
* Terence Dolan's A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English was published.

## Sport
### Association football

* St Patrick's Athletic won the League of Ireland.
* Cork City won the FAI Cup.
* Shelbourne's home UEFA Cup tie against Rangers was moved to England due to fears of sectarian trouble. Despite taking a 3–0 lead, Shelbourne lost 3–5.
* 8 May – The Irish under-16 team won the European Championship.
* 26 July - The Irish under-18 team won the European Championship.

### Gaelic football

* Galway won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, beating Kildare in the final.

### Golf

* Murphy's Irish Open was won by David Carter (England).

### Hurling

* Offaly won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship for the second time in five years.

### Swimming

* 6 August – Olympic gold medalist Michelle Smith was banned from competition for four years for tampering with a drug test.

## Births

* 17 March – Nathan O'Toole, actor
* 8 August – Liam Scales, footballer

## Deaths

* 26 January – Ernest Gébler, writer (b. 1914).
* 8 February – Niall Sheridan, poet, fiction writer and broadcaster (b. 1912).
* 28 February – Dermot Morgan, actor and comedian (b. 1952).
* 15 March – Hugh Coveney, Fine Gael TD and Cabinet Minister, yachtsman (b. 1935).
* 17 April – Robin Lawler, soccer player (born 1925).
* 6 May – Sybil Connolly, fashion designer (b. 1921).
* 22 May – Jim Power, Galway hurler (b. 1894).
* 26 May – Kate Cruise O'Brien, writer (b. 1948).
* 23 June
** Paul O'Dwyer, lawyer and politician in the United States (b. 1907).
** Maureen O'Sullivan, actress (b. 1911).
* 26 July – Seán Ó hEinirí, fisherman, seanchaí and monolingual speaker of the Irish language (b. 1915).
* 13 August – Liam de Paor, historian and archaeologist (b. 1926).
* 20 September – Robert Malachy Burke, Christian Socialist and philanthropist (b. 1907).
* 10 October – Tommy Quaid, Limerick hurler (b. 1957).
* 11 November – Paddy Clancy, folk singer (b. 1922).
* 13 November – Valerie Hobson, actress (b. 1917).
* 21 November – John David Gwynn, cricketer (b. 1907).
* 26 December – Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army and the Official IRA (b. 1923).
* Full date unknown – Patrick Hickey, visual artist (b. 1927).