2 May – Aer Lingus Flight 164, a Boeing 737 en route from Dublin to London was hijacked and ordered to fly to Tehran. The flight was diverted to Paris and the hijacker, Laurence Downey, was arrested.
5 May – Bobby Sands died on the 66th day of his hunger strike in the Maze Prison.
12 May – Francis Hughes, previously the most wanted man in Northern Ireland, died on the 59th day of his hunger strike in the Maze Prison.
8 July – Provisional Irish Republican Army member Joe McDonnell died on the 61st day of his hunger strike.
25 July – During a fire at Portlaoise Prison, Irish Army Pte Thomas Metcalfe scaled a forty-foot (12 m) high drainpipe in darkness and rescued a comrade trapped on a blazing rooftop. He later received the Military Medal for Gallantry.
19 December – Penlee lifeboat disaster: The Arklow-bound, Dublin-registered Union Star was lost on its maiden voyage off Cornwall. Sixteen lives were lost, eight from the Union Star and eight from RNLB Solomon Browne (ON 954) who died while attempting rescue.
27 December – Supporters of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children marched in Dublin to demand a referendum for an anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution.