14 May – Northern Ireland ground to a halt as the Ulster Workers' Council called a strike following the defeat of an anti-Sunningdale Agreement motion.
Late May – President Erskine Childers paid the first state visit by an Irish head of state to Europe when he visited Belgium with his wife, Rita.[1] This followed the three-day state visit to Ireland by King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium in May 1968.
14 June – Anatoli Kaplin, the first Soviet Ambassador to Ireland, visited President Childers at Áras an Uachtaráin, the President's residence.
20 July – About ten women, styled as the "Dublin City Women's Invasion Force", including journalist Nell McCafferty, politician and activist Nuala Fennell, and poet Mary D'Arcy, entered the Forty Foot bathing place in Sandycove in Dublin, historically a men-only nude bathing area. The women were claiming their right to swim there. From that time forward, women swam at the Forty Foot.[2]
1 September – Transition Year was introduced on a pilot basis in three schools.