2014: A year of historical anniversaries

THE New Year: when a local authority’s thoughts turn to ... “I wonder how old this area is anyway. Maybe there’s an anniversary coming up”.

This year it’s Waterford 1100. Of course they didn’t just decide it last Wednesday. The granting of its charter in 914 has been known about for years. It follows in a long line of Irish festival anniversaries. There was Galway 500 in 1984 which celebrated the city’s first busker. Cork 800 took place in the following year. The joie de vivre of that year inspired the people of the city to elect Bernie Murphy as an independent councillor. He subsequently went to San Francisco to get his teeth done and tried to get elected to the Dáil in 1987 with a manifesto that promised to abolish the Seanad, state cars and pensions for sitting TDs. What a character!

Dublin had a millennium in 1988 which commemorated the 1,000th anniversary of 988, the year the city was probably sort-of temporarily retaken from the Vikings.