2006 in Northern Ireland

← 2005 2004 2003 2006 in Northern Ireland → 2007 2008 2009
Centuries:	20th 21st
Decades:	1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s
See also:	2006 in the United Kingdom 2006 in Ireland Other events of 2006 List of years in Northern Ireland

Events during the year 2006 in Northern Ireland.

Incumbents

• First Minister - Suspended
• deputy First Minister - Suspended
• Secretary of State - Peter Hain

Events

• 30 January – Postal workers entered a 20-day wildcat strike disrupting most of Belfast's delivery service.
• 25 February –
  Unionist
  ) parade in the city, which subsequently became violent.
• 17 March – New Oncology Centre was opened at Belfast City Hospital.
• 15 May – The members of the Northern Ireland Assembly were recalled 3½ years after the assembly was suspended, with a view to electing an executive, and having the suspension lifted.
• 22 May – Belfast City airport was renamed George Best Belfast City Airport on what would have been George Best's 60th birthday.^[1]
• 1 July –
  National War Memorial, Islandbridge
  .
• 18 July – SS Nomadic (1911) returned to Belfast, where she was built.^[2]
• 11 October – Multi-party political talks on Northern Ireland were held in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, ending on 13 October and resulting in the St Andrews Agreement.
• 18 October – Northern Ireland overtook the Republic of Ireland in the FIFA rankings for the first time.^[3]
• 24 November –
  first and deputy first minister were due to be made.^[4][5]

• August – Seamus Heaney suffered a stroke from which he recovered, but it required him to cancel all public engagements for several months.^[6]
• 21 October – Renovated and extended
  Grand Opera House in Belfast
  was opened.
• 3 November –
  Belfast Festival at Queen's.^[7]
• Seamus Heaney's poetry collection District and Circle was published and won the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Sport

Athletics

• 18 February–19 February – Irish Indoor Athletics Championships, Odyssey Arena, Belfast.
• Northern Ireland competed in the Commonwealth Games claiming two silver medals

Football

• European Championship Qualifiers^[8]

2 September – Northern Ireland 0–3 Iceland

6 September – Northern Ireland 3–2 Spain

7 October – Denmark 0–0 Northern Ireland

11 October – Northern Ireland 1–0 Latvia

• Other International Matches
  • Northern Ireland 1–0 Estonia (1 March)
  • Finland 1–2 Northern Ireland (16 August)
  • Uruguay 1–0 Northern Ireland (21 May) (in United States)
  • Romania 2–0 Northern Ireland (26 May) (in United States)
• Setanta Cup
  • Winners:
    Drogheda United
• Irish League
  • Winners: Linfield F.C.
• Irish Cup
  • Winners: Linfield 2–1 Glentoran
• FAI Carlsberg Cup
  • Winners: Derry City 4–3 St Patrick's Athletic (after extra time)
• December –
  George Best Memorial Trust launches a fund-raising drive to raise £200,000 in subscriptions to pay for a life-size bronze sculpture of George Best.^[9]

• • Christy Ring Cup Winners: Antrim

(Antrim 5–13 : 1–07 Carlow)

• • Nicky Rackard Cup Winners: Derry

(Derry 5–15 : 1–11 Donegal)

Golf

• Europe win the
  Kildare Golf and Country Club, Straffan, Co. Kildare
  from 22 to 24 September.
• Belen Mozo
  ).

• Belfast Giants won the Elite Ice Hockey League championship.

Motorcycling

• 13 May –
  North West 200 2006 motor cycle road racing took place. Robert Dunlop won one of the races, the 15th North West 200
  win in his career.
• 4 July –
  University of Ulster in Coleraine
  .
• 9 September – Darran Lindsay, killed while practising for the Killalane road races, near Dublin.

Rugby Union

• RBS Six Nations Championship
  • Ireland 26–16 Italy
  • France 43–31 Ireland
  • Ireland 31–5 Wales
  • Ireland 15–9 Scotland
  • England 24–28 Ireland

Ireland claimed the

triple crown

Deaths

• 5 January – Merlyn Rees 85, third Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
• 7 January – Alf McMichael, footballer (born 1927).
• 8 January – Tony Banks, Baron Stratford, former Labour Party MP and Minister for Sport (born 1943)
• 4 April – Denis Donaldson, volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army, member of Sinn Féin, exposed in 2005 as an informer (born 1950).
• 11 April – Siobhán O'Hanlon, Sinn Féin official (born 1963).
• 30 April – Billy McComb, magician and comedian (born 1922).
• 22 May –
  Richard McIlkenny, one of the Birmingham Six
  .
• 21 June –
  1981 Irish Hunger Strike
  (born 1932).
• 17 August – Ken Goodall, international rugby player (born 1947).
• 20 August – Bryan Budd, Parachute Regiment Corporal killed on active service in Afghanistan and posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (born 1977).
• 5 September – Anne Gregg travel writer and TV presenter (born 1940).
• 9 September – Darran Lindsay, motorcycle road racer, killed while practising (born 1971).
• 14 November – John Hallam, actor (born 1941).

See also

• 2006 in England
• 2006 in Scotland
• 2006 in Wales

References