2010: Reasons to be cheerful? Part three...

Diplomatic leaks, backroom financial deals, rioting students, protest marches, nuclear brinkmanship...2010 has certainly been eventful.

Luis Urzua: Last miner out

The good news stories are however very thin on the ground this year. The Chilean Miners warmed the global cockles, no doubt about it but even that feel-good story is tempered by the tragic fate of the New Zealand Coalminers later in the year...


Science clearly marches on in 2010 with major landmarks like the first ever capture of anti-matter. The fact that it is done without the creation of a black hole that swallows our dimension is probably one of the year's overlooked good news stories...

It has also been the year when the shadowy world of online espionage came to the attention of the established media in a big way and that, perhaps more than anything, is likely to be a portent of things to come...

September

Pastor Jones: Nice tash...

The day is 5 September, the venue is Croke Park and the occasion is the All-Ireland Hurling final. An ancient rivalry between Kilkenny and Tipperary is played out, this time to Tipp’s advantage. Captain Eoin Kelly lifts the Liam MacCarthy Cup after Tipp romps home 4-17 to 1-18.

The cost of Irish state borrowing breaches 6% for the first time on 7 September, increasing fears that the state might not be able to foot the Anglo Irish Bank bill.

On 10 September, a redneck preacher from Florida singlehandedly creates a diplomatic incident by calling for a Koran-burning commemoration of World Trade Centre Bombing. Pastor Terry Jones and his incitement bandwagon also gets hitched to the problematic Mosque in downtown Manhattan (see August). POTUS Obama suggests Jones is an Al Qaida recruiting sergeant and eventually the good pastor backs down, doubtless satisfied he’d caused enough fuss.

On 14 September, an audibly under-the-weather Brian Cowen gives a nine-minute interview to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland after a particularly late night in Galway City. Twitter users, including a Fine Gael TD, say the 'Taoiseach sounded like he had had a heavy night'. Cowen later calls an unconvincing press conference denying any incapacity.

Bad Benedict, the meanest Pope north of the Rio Grande

Pope Benedict XVI visits the UK in the first ever state visit by a Pontiff to Britain on 16 September (previous visits had been pastoral). The visit is widely seen as a success by the UK media. Cardinal Newman gets beatified and no-one mentions Rome’s blatant overtures to disgruntled High Anglicans, never mind the generations of abuse....

It is also the day that seminal Gaelic games commentator Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh brings an end to a 62-year commentary career when he announces his intention to retire after this year’s All-Ireland football final and international rules games. For generations of Irish sports fans, Ó Muircheartaigh’s lyrical and fluid bilingual commentary is the true voice of Gaelic games...nobody does it better.

Proving that the term ‘Fighting Irish’ is an equal opportunities proposition, Wicklow-born boxer Katie Taylor wins her third World Championship title in Barbados on 18 September. Katie also plays for Ireland’s Women’s Football team.

The Rebels lay Down low in the All-Ireland Football final in Croker on 19 September. Cork have waited 20 years to take the Sam Maguire Cup back to the Leeside and steal it from the Mournemen by 0-16 to 0-15.

Korean leader off to the 'Team America' Premier

In another story that underlines 2010 as the year when the online world really comes into its own; on 24 September, it is revealed that the Stuxnet computer worm that is believed to have attacked Iran’s infrastructure was, according to security experts, almost certainly the work of a government agency...

Ed Miliband shades it to win the UK Labour party leadership contest, seeing off his marginally more insipid brother David and more capable (but equally unpleasant) candidates like Ed Balls on 25 September.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il names his youngest son, Jong-un, a senior military general on 27 September. The move prompts speculation that young Jong is likely to be his father’s successor.

Leinster House hosts ‘Cementgate’ on 29 September. Disgruntled citizen Joe Costello is arrested after parking a cement truck and blocking the gates of the Irish Parliament.

On 30 September , the Irish Central Bank estimates a final cost of €29.3bn for the taxpayer’s involvement in Anglo Irish Bank, while AIB would need a further €3bn which would effectively nationalise it.

October

In a cynical erosion of principle, UK Chancellor George Osborne on 4 October abolishes the universality of the welfare system when he scraps child benefit for all.

The Coca Cola Boys (‘Real’ IRA) are being blamed for a car-bomb which explodes on 5 October in Derry causing substantial damage to a shopping centre.

Still serving an 11-year sentence for 'incitement to subvert state power' in the PRC, the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 is awarded on 8 October to Liu Xiaobo “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”.

The 33 Chilean miners who comprise the world’s first truly global ‘boy trapped down a well’ story, are rescued today and emerge from subterranean captivity to instant global fame. Today, 13 October, is also Margret Thatcher’s 85^th birthday, so it must have been nice for her to turn on telly this morning to see lots of cheering miners...

UK Chancellor Osborne announces a spending review on 20 October that contains a proposed £81bn in cuts most likely to damage the vulnerable end of society through cuts to health, welfare and education...

Unrest threatens in France as the strike and oil depot blockade conducted in protest against President Sarkozy’s proposed pension reforms continues on 21 October.

Wikileaks releases a significant amount of material relating to the US military involvement in Iraq on 23 October. The material purports to document torture, summary execution and other war-crimes.

An earthquake followed by a tsunami off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia on 25 October results in the deaths of over 400 people with  hundreds still missing. Ongoing and repeated eruptions of Mount Merapi in Central Java, Indonesia the following day, have killed at least 240 people and forced hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate.

An alleged terrorist plot to dispatch explosives from Yemen to the US via the UK is foiled amid much media brouhaha on 30 October.

November

The Democrats take a beating in the US mid-term elections held on 2 November. The Democratic Party suffers major defeats in many national and state level elections, with many seats switching to Republican control. The Republican Party gains 680 seats in state legislative races to break the previous record of 628 set by Democrats in the post-Watergate elections of 1974.

Aung San Suu Kyi

It is Guy Fawkes night in the UK but 5 November in Ireland is ‘quantative cheesing’ day. The openly derided Irish government announces that it will give free cheese to needy households in the run-up to Christmas. 

The Irish Department of Finance refuses on 10 November to comment on market scuttlebutt that the International Monetary Fund is preparing to make Ireland bailout offer. It is also the day that UK student protest over fee hikes becomes more confrontational. Up 60,000 students are involved in a London protest march which is on occasion violent.

Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest on 13 November.

It is by any standards a dark day for a small state. On 16 November, the placid village of Ballycotton Co. Cork finds itself at the centre of a waking nightmare. Six-year-old Zoe and two-year-old Ella Butler are found dead in their home, just hours after their father John Butler drives a car doused in petrol into a ditch only 2km away.

As if that is not enough, a few hours later in Co. Limerick, the bodies of 25-year-old Sarah Hines, her children Reece and Amy, and her friend Alicia Brough are discovered.  A 31-year-old man is then arrested in a pub in Co. Clare. It is also the day that the rumours are finally confirmed and the Irish government announces that it is to enter negotiations with the EU and IMF.

CERN: Home of the Hadron Collider

Researchers at CERN (Home of the Hadron Collider) trap 38 anti-hydrogen atoms for a sixth of a second, marking 17 November as the first time in history that humans have captured antimatter.

Over a rocky 72 hours from 21 to 23 November, the Irish government admits to its people that it is in fact seeking an IMF bailout; there follows an announcement that there will be an election sought in January 2011. The IMF bailout is in the region of €85-90bn and binds the people of Ireland to poverty for potentially generations.

The Irish bailout clearly butters no parsnips with the markets because on 24 November, Standard & Poor’s downgrades Ireland again, from AA to A, and puts the country on ‘creditwatch’. Meanwhile, over at the 38^th Parallel, it’s those crazy Koreans at it again. The South Korean military is put on “highest alert”, following shelling by North Korea of one of its offshore islands. Meanwhile, POTUS Obama describes North Korea as “a significant threat”.

After a by-election is finally forced in the long vacant Donegal South West constituency, local Sinn Féin candidate Pearce Doherty romps home on 25 November.

Inclement weather conditions don’t deter the crowd of up to 100,000 people who take part in a protest march in Dublin on 27 November.

WikiLeaks releases a collection of more than 250,000 American diplomatic cables (‘The Embassy Cables’), including 100,000 marked "secret" or "confidential" on 28 November.

December

On 4 December it is revealed by Irish Department of Finance figures that the country’s deficit for 2010 will be be €18.7bn, 32%of GDP and the highest in the eurozone.

The discredited Irish government unveils ‘Budget 2011’ on 7 December, prescribing  €6bn in cuts and taxation on the public. It is widely criticised for punishing the more vulnerable in society – blind people, widows, low-earners, carers, social welfare recipients. It is also the day that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is arrested in London on the foot of an extradition warrant for a Swedish sexual assault allegation that had hitherto been labelled ‘unfounded’.

Wikileaks founder Assange

Student protests in London’s Parliament Square on 9 December result in violent confrontations and damage to property; elsewhere in West End, Charles Saxe-Coburg Gotha and his consort are attacked in their obscenely expensive motorcar by a mob of students.

Julian Assange is granted bail on 16 December. It is also the day that support for Fianna Fáil hit its lowest level ever, according to the latest Ipsos/MRBI poll for the Irish Times. Furthermore, the European Court of Human Rights rules today that Ireland had breached the constitutional rights of a woman who became pregnant while undergoing chemotherapy, by forcing her to travel abroad for an abortion.

Vince Cable, the Lib Dem’s Business Secretary in the discredited Tory Liberal coalition is recorded by two very attractive Daily Telegraph journalists who meet Cable for a cosy constituency meeting in a story that breaks on 21 December. Cable’s inappropriate remarks and adolescent braggadocio show an astonishing lack of judgement...

Another discredited politician makes the headlines on 23 December when Scottish Socialist party leader is found guilty of perjuring himself in a News Of The World libel suit. The police in Scotland apparently devoted 55,000 man hours to this case...


Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect, says it carried out Christmas Eve bombings and church attacks that kill at least 38 people in the Jos region of Nigeria.

Legendary gunslinger Billy the Kid is turned down for a pardon on New Year's Eve, nearly 130 years after his death at the hands of Irish American lawman Pat Garrett on 14 July 1881.