2004: VILLAINS:In March, in a series of simultaneous attacks, 13 bombs ripped through Madrid's train system killing 200 people and injuring thousands. It was the work of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell, and it was Europe's worst terrorist incident since the Lockerbie PanAm bombing in 1988. In the north Caucasus, in a horrifying 53 hour siege by Chechen separatists in a school in Beslan, South Ossetia, at least 338 people, half of them children, were killed during a bloodbath.
HERO
Despite fierce opposition from vested interests, notably publicans who predicted catastrophic effects on their profits, minister for health Micheál Martin introduced a smoking ban in restaurants, pubs and other public places, to take effect from midnight on March 28th. Ireland was so ahead of many of our European neighbours in introducing the ban that it became an international news story.
DISASTER
On St Stephen’s Day, a massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami that decimated the coastal areas of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia – which was hardest hit – and other areas in the region. The death toll is estimated at 250,000 although the waves hit so many small islands and displaced so many hundreds of thousands of people that an official number has been difficult to calculate.
AWARDS
Director Peter Jackson's movie Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kingswept the boards at the Academy Awards, joining an exclusive club. Only two other movies, Titanic(1997) and Ben-Hur(1959), picked up 11 statuettes and Jackson's movie went one further by being the only film ever to win every Oscar for which it was nominated.
LUAS
The Luas lines in Dublin – Green and Red – opened during the summer. The tram system, built by the Railway Procurement Agency for €775 million, was at the time the most expensive piece of infrastructure in the history of the State. The original estimate was for €288 million. The Green Line, from Sandyford to St Stephen’s Green, was nine kilometres long, with 13 stops, the Red Line 15km with 23 stops. Rural dwellers without any access to public transport were justifiably furious.
In February, Mark Zuckerberg, a 23-year-old Harvard student, developed a site where his fellow students could find out more about each other. Originally called “the facebook”, it became Facebook.com, spread to other schools and colleges and eventually, in 2006, to anyone with an e-mail address. The social network site quickly became a global phenomenon, with 30 million people becoming members within just 12 months.
2005
HEROES
When their brother, Robert McCartney, was murdered outside a Belfast bar in January, his sisters Paula, Catherine and Donna, and his fiancée Bridgeen Hagans, embarked on a public campaign to find his killers. Despite being subjected to a campaign against them, including being intimidated out of their homes, they claimed the killer was a member of the IRA and was being shielded by the paramilitary group. The women won several international awards for their bravery and courage.
VILLAIN
Former Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke was sentenced to six months in prison for failing to make tax returns on more than £100,000 between 1982 and 1991. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern faced criticism over his appointment of Burke to ministerial office in 1997 despite rumours of corruption surrounding the TD.
DISASTER
In August, Hurricane Katrina struck the east coast of the US, devastating the state of Mississippi. New Orleans was underwater when the city’s levees and flood walls burst, homes were destroyed and the official death toll was 1,100. New Orleans was evacuated, and many people did not begin to return until mid-2006. Then president George Bush was heavily criticised for his slow reaction to the crisis, and the response from Washington was seen as a reflection of a deeply ingrained class and colour divide in the US.
INVENTION
Three former PayPal executives created the domain name YouTube in February, and a whole new way of wasting hours and hours surfing the net was born.
The clever trio worked on the idea for nearly a year, and sold it to Google for $1.65 billion in stock. The site, which allows members of the public to create and freely upload content, has further democratised the web.
BREAKTHROUGH
In July, the Provisional IRA issued a statement ordering an end to the armed campaign and ordered all its units to dump their arms. By September the head of the independent decommissioning body, Gen John de Chastelain, announced he was satisfied that the terrorist organisation’s arms were beyond use. Decommissioning marked a major step towards the restoration of devolution.
SIGN OF THE TIMES
In March more than 5,000 people queued to be the first shoppers in a massive new shopping mecca, Dundrum Town Centre, on Dublin’s southside. The State’s largest shopping centre was quickly nicknamed “the temple of boom”.
