Events during the year 1939 in Northern Ireland.
Incumbents Governor - The Duke of Abercorn Prime Minister - James Craig
Events 7 March – Harland and Wolff's Belfast shipyard launched the ocean liner for Royal Mail Lines. 17 April – Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Lord Craigavon, dismissed the Republic of Ireland government's position of neutrality as "cowardly". 4 May – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland announced that conscription would not be extended to Northern Ireland. 17 August – Harland and Wolff's Belfast shipyard launched the aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy. 3 September – The United Kingdom declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September.
Arts and literature 18 May – Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal: a poem was published. June – The Northern Ireland Players performed Joseph Tomelty's Barnum is Right as their first commercial stage play.
Sport
Football Irish League Winners: Belfast Celtic
Irish Cup Winners: Linfield 2 – 0 Ballymena United
Births 1 January – Billy Reid, volunteer in Provisional Irish Republican Army (killed in gunfight with British Army 1971) 13 April – Seamus Heaney, poet, writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (died 2013) 17 May – Eddie Magill, footballer and football manager 6 July – Mary Peters, pentathlete and 1972 Summer Olympics gold medal winner 27 July – Michael Longley, poet (died 2025) 9 August – Vincent Hanna, television journalist (died 1997) 16 August – Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland 11 October – Austin Currie, founder-member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Fine Gael TD (died 2021) 8 December – James Galway, flautist Undated – Éamonn O'Doherty, sculptor (died 2011)
Deaths 2 February – Amanda McKittrick Ros, novelist and poet noted for her purple prose (born 1860) 20 September – Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin, astronomer (born 1865)
See also 1939 in Scotland 1939 in Wales
References