1922: It's a State! Christened Saorstat Eireann (next day, Antrim, Down, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry - Londonderry, if you insist - opt out to seek their fortune elsewhere); Civil War.
1923: The Civic Guards become An Garda Siochana; W.B. Yeats, poet and senator, scoops Nobel Prize for Literature.
1924: Post-Civil War tensions reappear when some Army officers mutiny and demand Government declares intention to achieve a republic.
1925: Boundary Report shelved - Border is recognised as a reality here to stay.
1926: 2RN, later Radio Eireann (later still RTE Radio 1), is born and shows Radio Ireland how it's done; Eamon de Valera says goodbye to Sinn Fein and founds Fianna Fail; George Bernard Shaw, playwright, wit and toast of London cafe society, follows in Yeats's footsteps.
1927: Dev enters the Dail, dismissing oath of allegiance to the British king as "an empty formula"; justice minister Kevin O'Higgins assassinated by Dev's former comrades in the IRA; the ESB is born - rural electrification begins.
1928: The Irish flag flies at the Olympic Games (Amsterdam) for the first time; Irish currency issued (Yeats chaired the design committee whose work still graces the 20p, 10p and 5p coins . . . until EMU).
1929: Ardnacrusha hydro-electric station in Co Clare opens; censorship of Publications Act passed.
1930: Gate Theatre opens; first Sweepstakes draw nets winners £208,792.
1931: Irish Press launched.
1932: Dev forms first Fianna Fail government - start of protectionist policies prompting economic war with Britain; Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin (main gates into Phoenix Park are removed for procession . . . and are never seen again).
1933: Blueshirts strut their neo-fascist stuff but are speedily banned; United Irish Party (later Fine Gael) born out of amalgam of Blueshirts and Cumann na nGaedheal.
1934: Man of Arran filmed on Inis Mor.
1935: Importation of artificial contraceptives banned.
1936: Blueshirts and Republicans fight on opposite sides in Spanish Civil War; Aer Lingus born.
1937: Bunreacht na hEireann (aka the Constitution), lays claim to "the whole island of Ireland" and recognises the "special position" of the Roman Catholic church, approved by referendum.
1938: Douglas Hyde, Protestant Irishspeaker from Frenchpark, Co Roscommon, elected first president; Anglo-Irish agreements end economic war with UK.
1939: Start of second World War (known in the Saorstat as "the Emergency"); Special Criminal Court set up; Finnegans Wake published.
1940: Germany attempts (unsuccessfully) to engage the help of the IRA.
1941: South sends fire engines to Belfast after German bombing raid; following month, Germans mistakenly bomb Dublin (thought it was Liverpool), killing 34.
1942: Rationing and press censorship enforced for duration of "the Emergency".
1943: Central Bank formed.
1944: Children's Allowances introduced.
1945: Second World War ends, Dev sends condolences to Germany on death of Hitler; Sean T. O'Kelly succeeds Hyde as President.
1946: Sean MacBride, former IRA chief of staff (later, 1974, Nobel Peace laureate and founder of Amnesty International) forms Clann na Poblachta political party; Naval Service formed.
1947: World's first duty free facility started at Shannon Airport.
1948: John A. Costello of Fine Gael forms first coalition (inter-party) government, ending 16 years of Fianna Fail rule; Irish rugby team wins Triple Crown.
1949: Costello abolishes the Saorstat and declares a Republic (during a visit to Canada!).
1950: IDA established; scourge of TB.
1951: Dr Noel Browne's Mother-and-Child health scheme attacked by Catholic bishops and government eventually collapses (actually over the price of milk); FF back in power; Professor E.T.S. Walton shares the Nobel Prize for Physics (he helped split the atom).
1952: Adoption Act declares parents may only adopt children with same religion as themselves.
1953: Princess Victoria capsizes off Co Down, 128 die in Ireland's worst sea disaster.
1954: Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow first staged at The Pike theatre in Dublin; second inter-party government.
1955: Ireland joins United Nations.
1956: Ronnie Delaney wins 1,500 metres gold medal at Melbourne Olympics.
1957: IRA Border campaign; FF back in power.
1958: First Irish UN soldiers depart for Lebanon.
1959: Dev succeeds Sean T. O'Kelly as president; Sean Lemass elected Taoiseach, starts implementation of first Programme for Economic Expansion (based on memo, written by civil servant T.K. Whitaker, entitled Has Ireland A Future?); ICTU inaugurated.
1960: Nine Irish UN soldiers killed in the Congo by Baluba warriors (for a time afterwards, the word Baluba joins the lexicon of Dublin street abuse, as in: "Gerowa here ya bleedin' Baluba!").
1961: RTE television starts transmissions (date later identified by Catholic bishop as moment when sex arrived in Ireland; origin of babies prior to 1961 unknown); last train runs on West Clare railway.
1962: Gay Byrne hosts first Late Late Show (more sex).
1963: Visit by US President John F. Kennedy.
1964: Brendan Behan dies and so does Sean O'Casey; start of second Programme for Economic Expansion (ran until 1966); Arkle wins first of three Cheltenham Gold Cups.
1965: Lemass and Northern Ireland counterpart, Terence O'Neill, meet in Belfast and then Dublin for a cup of tea - first such meetings in 43 years cause unionist uproar and spell end to O'Neill's career.
1966: Nelson's Pillar blown by up IRA (was in middle of O'Connell Street); Abbey Theatre reopens; Jack Lynch succeeds Lemass as leader of Fianna Fail.
1967: Free secondary education introduced; censorship ban removed from over 5,000 works.
1968: Aer Lingus plane crashes into sea off Wexford, 61 die; civil rights marches begin in Northern Ireland.
1969: British troops arrive in Northern Ireland; Samuel Beckett wins Nobel Prize for Literature.
1970: Sinn Fein/IRA split into Officials and Provisionals; Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney fired by Jack Lynch, both later acquitted of conspiring to import guns for the IRA; Dana wins Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland and Derry.
1971: Internment introduced in North, refugee camps set up in South; protesters bring condoms to Dublin by train from Belfast.
1972: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers shoot dead 13 demonstrators in Derry; British embassy in Dublin burned down; referendum deletes special position of Catholic church from Constitution; voting age lowered to 18.
1973: Ireland joins EEC; Erskine Childers succeeds Dev as President; election of Fine Gael-Labour government led by Liam Cosgrave, son of W.T.
1974: Loyalist bombs kill 31 in Dublin and Monaghan; Cearbhall O Dalaigh succeeds Childers who died of heart attack.
1975: Three members of Miami Showband murdered by UVF; Dutch businessman Tiede Herrema kidnapped by republican maverick Eddie Gallagher and later rescued.
1976: IRA landmine murders British ambassador in Dublin; Belfast Peace People (Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams) win Nobel Prize (and keep the money); O Dalaigh resigns after row with Cosgrave government, he is succeeded by Dr Patrick Hillery.
1977: Landslide election gives Fianna Fail 20seat overall majority.
1978: RTE starts second TV station; High Court declares Wood Quay, Dublin, a national monument; protests against nuclear power.
1979: IRA bomb murders Lord Mountbatten in Sligo; visit of Pope John Paul II; Charles Haughey succeeds Lynch as leader of Fianna Fail.
1980: 700,000 PAYE employees demonstrate against tax system in January.
1981: 48 die in fire at Stardust disco in Dublin; 10 republican prisoners die on hunger strike in Northern Ireland; Fine Gael-Labour coalition led by Garret FitzGerald elected.
1982: GUBU year! FitzGerald government collapses, Haughey elected Taoiseach (March); Haughey election agent charged with double voting; double murderer Malcolm MacArthur arrested in home of attorney general; government illegally taps journalists' telephones; Haughey government collapses (November).
1983: New FitzGerald government confirms Irish Times disclosure of phone tapping; New Ireland Forum meets; anti-abortion amendment inserted into Constitution.
1984: Kerry babies tribunal; Thatcher dismisses options in New Ireland Forum report with remark that each was Out! Out! Out!
1985: Sale of contraceptives legalised; Bob Geldof and Live Aid raise £45 million; Anglo-Irish Agreement signed; Progressive Democrats founded; Barry McGuigan is world featherweight boxing champion.
1986: Knock Airport opens; Sinn Fein ends policy of abstention from Dail; divorce rejected in referendum.
1987: IRA Enniskillen Poppy Day bomb kills 11. Stephen Roche wins Tour de France; scratch cards enter vocabulary.
1988: Happy birthday Dublin! 1,000 years young. National Lottery is born!
1989: Guildford Four released; Fianna Fail enters first coalition (with the Progressive Democrats); Century Radio launched.
1990: Mary Robinson succeeds Patrick Hillery as President; Ireland reaches quarter-finals of soccer World Cup; My Left Foot wins Oscar signalling boost in film industry.
1991: Birmingham Six released; beef tribunal opens; Century Radio closes.
1992: Bishop Casey exposed as the father of a teenage boy after love affair; Haughey forced to resign over complicity in tapping affair of 1982; Democratic Left founded; Supreme Court rules abortion legal in certain circumstances.
1993: Albert Reynolds and John Major agree Downing Street Declaration.
1994: IRA declares ceasefire in August; loyalist ceasefire follows in October.
1995: Irish Press ceases publication; Constitutional amendment permitting divorce passed by referendum; Fianna Fail government collapses over Father Brendan Smyth extradition scandal; Seamus Heaney wins Nobel Prize for literature; Riverdance the show is born.
1996: IRA ends ceasefire by bombing Canary Wharf in London; Veronica Guerin murdered; Swimmer Michelle Smith wins three golds at Atlanta Olympics; TnaG launched.
1997: Haughey disgraced as McCracken Tribunal confirms he received £1.3 million from Ben Dunne while Taoiseach; Mary McAleese elected President; Happy 75th Birthday Eire!
Presented in collaboration with Network 2's News 2 programme