July To December
JULY
1ST: Ireland takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Communities and will host a summit of heads of government in Dublin in November.
16TH:Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq and will rule for almost 24 years.
17TH: Charlie Haughey's Health (Family Planning) Act 1979, which allows the sale of contraceptives to married couples aged over 18, passes the final stages in the Seanad.
24TH: The Boomtown Rats reach the number one spot with
I Don't Like Mondaysand hold the position for almost a month. The song is inspired by an incident in January when Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire at a San Diego school, and killed two adults.
Other popular songs this year include the Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star, and Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes.
AUGUST
9TH: The first group of Vietnamese refugees or "boat people" arrive in Ireland for resettlement. They are some of the one and a quarter million people who flee their homeland after Ho Chi Minh's communist regime claims Vietnam.
10TH: Michael Jackson (left) releases his first breakthrough album Off the Wall, which sells seven million copies in the US.
14TH: Some 15 sailors die after a freak storm blows up in the Irish Sea during the Fastnet yacht race.
27TH: The queen's cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull (14) and Paul Maxwell (15) are killed when the IRA blow up his boat in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo. The Dowager Lady Brabourne dies the next day. In November, Thomas McMahon will be convicted of the murder but will be set free in 1998 under the Belfast Agreement.
SEPTEMBER
2ND: Police discover the body of the 12th victim of the Yorkshire Ripper in an alleyway in Bradford. Peter Sutcliffe (right) was arrested in 1980 after murdering one more woman and found guilty of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven more.
9TH: Síle de Valera directly challenges taoiseach Jack Lynch's leadership when she calls on him to "demonstrate his republicanism" at a commemoration service in Fermoy, Co Cork.
29TH: Pope John Paul II receives a rapturous response when he arrives in Ireland for a three-day visit.
An estimated two and a half million people attended the seven public venues during his visit, with more than one million people turning up to see him say Mass in the Phoenix Park. The IRA will later reject his call for peace.
OCTOBER
5TH:Dublin band U2 play their first television performance on RTÉ at a concert in the Cork Opera House.
6TH:Pope John Paul II becomes the first pontiff to be received at the White House, during a seven-day tour of the US.
12TH: £500,000 is stolen in a raid at Trinity Bank on Dame Street in Dublin.
17TH: It is announced that Mother Teresa will be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in the slums of Calcutta. The 1979 Nobel Prize for Medicine is shared by Allan M Cormack and Godfrey Hounsfield for developing the Cat scan.
26TH: South Korean president Park Chung Hee is assassinated by the head of his central intelligence agency, Kim Jae Kyu, who is later sentenced to death for the murder.
NOVEMBER
4TH: The Iran hostage crisis begins when 3,000 Iranian radicals invade the US embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages, including more than 50 Americans. They demand that the US send the former Shah of Iran back to stand trial.
The hostages are held for 444 days, and are released minutes after Ronald Regan is sworn in as US president.
16TH: Some 33 people are injured when two trains carrying morning commuters crash near Dalkey station.
22ND: Gerry Fitt resigns as leader of the SDLP after a disagreement over whether the party should attend a conference on the future of Northern Ireland because it lacks an Irish dimension. He is replaced by John Hume on November 28th.
DECEMBER
3RD: Eleven fans are killed in a stampede as they try to enter the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati to see The Who perform.
5TH: Jack Lynch resigns as taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader. Days later, Charlie Haughey is elected leader of Fianna Fáil, following a two-horse race with George Colley. He is elected taoiseach on December 11th.
25TH: The Soviet Union begins its invasion of Afghanistan and will send tens of thousands of troops across the border in the coming days.
31ST: 1979 is declared the worst year for industrial disputes in Ireland, having cost the economy more than 1.46 million working days.
