1939 in Northern Ireland

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 RMS Andes (1939) 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 HMS Formidable (67) 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.

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
 * 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)