'Examiner' at 180: 1960-1969 - A decade defined by political upheaval and cultural change
John F Kennedy dominated the news pages in 1963, with his June visit bringing tens of thousands of people onto the streets of Ireland
By the 1960s, the Cold War was in full swing, with the two superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - battling it out to show superiority, largely through the so-called “space race”.
Yuri Gagarian’s flight into orbit pushed the Soviet’s ahead in the propaganda war, and it would take a further eight years and the first moonwalk for the United States to regain the upper hand.
In December of 1961, the United Nations political committee adopted by acclamation an Irish resolution calling on the nuclear powers to stop the spread of atomic or hydrogen bombs.
Despite this resolution, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 created a genuine fear among the people of Ireland that it would spark nuclear war.
At a political level, Taoiseach Seán Lemass aligned Ireland with the United States and other Western nations.
Fortunately, leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev did a u-turn on his attempts to place nuclear missiles on Cuba and the situation was defused.
1962 was also the year television came to Ireland as the new Irish Television Service’s first programme aired in January.
John F Kennedy dominated the news pages in 1963, with his June visit bringing tens of thousands of people onto the streets of Ireland, followed by his assasination five months later, which saw an outpouring of tributes from Ireland.
Another famous visit that year was The Beatles, who played at the Adelphi Cinema, on Middle Abbey Street in Dublin, while overeager fans became unruly when gardaí sought to control the crowds outside.
The following year, the nation lost two of its literary giants: Sean O’Casey and Brendan Behan.
The cultural shift in the country was seen in 1966, when a wife’s nightdress was mentioned on the Late Late Show, hosted by Gay Byrne.
The Catholic church expressed its disapproval of the “immoral” reference, but it was only the beginning of Byrne’s career in bringing taboo topics into the public arena.
Sex continued to be a problem for the church in 1967. A risqué cabaret dancer Jayne Mansfield was due to perform at the Mount Brandon Hotel in Tralee, Co Kerry, but the show was cancelled following statements from the hierarchy.
There was major upheaval around the world in 1968, but particularly in Northern Ireland when the Troubles officially began.
On October 5, the Irish Civil Rights Association, which campaigned against the discrimination towards Catholics, defied a ban on one of its marches in Derry, which was followed by 50 hospitalisations, riots and the subsequent spiral of violence.
Abroad, the United States had civil rights demonstrations, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy; while Britain had anti-war riots.
Not even Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon could distract from the Troubles in Northern Ireland which were spiralling out of control in 1969.
In August of that year, British soldiers were sent to Derry city where it was reported that there were about 900 petrol bombs, while tensions flared in nearby Belfast as the situation edged towards a civil war.
At home, taoiseach Jack Lynch said he could no longer “stand by” and watch the violence, before calling for a United Nations peace-keeping force to be sent into the North.
New York public library officials said they were considering legal action against Irish writer Dr Peter Kavanagh who made daily trips to the library to memorise the letters of the late John Quinn and then published them in his own volume of The John Quinn Letters.
83 people died in the Shannon Estuary when a chartered airliner crashed seconds after taking off from Shannon airport.
The IRA campaign in Northern Ireland, which had been in effect since 1956, was called off.
Marilyn Monroe was found dead in Los Angeles with a number of medicine bottles on her bedside table.
90 men are suspended for taking time off work without permission to watch a televised soccer match between England and the Rest of the World. Their suspension results in a one-day strike at the Dunlops factory in Cork, where they worked.
Leader of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, is jailed for life for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the South African government.
America makes offensive moves against Vietnam, with troops in action against the Viet Cong near Saigon.
Twenty people were injured in a crush at Dublin airport when celebrating the return of Dickie Rock from the Eurovision.
Sixty one people - including two babes in arms - died after an Aer Lingus Cork-London Viscount aircraft plunged into the sea near Fishguard in Wales.
Samuel Beckett is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
