In showbiz:
- Big winners at the 86th Academy Awards were: 12 Years a Slave (Best Picture), Cate Blanchett (Best Actress for Blue Jasmine), Matthew McConaughey (Best Actor for Dallas Buyers Club), Lupita Nyong'o (Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave), Jared Leto (Best Supporting Actor for Dallas Buyers Club) and Alfonso Cuarón (Best Director for Gravity)
- Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin “consciously uncoupled” after 10 years of marriage
- Brangelina tied the knot: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt said “I do” in a private wedding ceremony in France in August
- The world’s most famous bachelor, George Clooney, came off the market in September when he married international human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin not-so-quietly in Venice
- The world lost many greats including Philip Seymour Hoffman (2nd Feb), Rik Mayall (9th Jun), Robin Williams (11th Aug) and Richard Attenborough (24th Aug)
- Ellen De Generes's star-studded selfie at the Oscars in March became the most retweeted message of all time (the selfie included Jennifer Lawrence, Channing Tatum, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, DeGeneres, Kevin Spacey, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong'o, and her brother, and Angelina Jolie)
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
- Singer and X Factor judge Cheryl dropped the Cole and announced her secret wedding to French businessman boyfriend of three months, Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini
- Kim and Kanye featured on the April cover of Vogue – then caused a stir around the country when they decided to honeymoon in Ireland after their lavish Paris-Florence wedding in May
- Mrs Kardashian-West was back in the press in November when she attempted to break the internet with some slightly trashy photos
- Garth-gate: the big ‘will he/won’t he?’ of the summer: when 5 dates at Croke Park were ultimately refused by Dublin City Council, Garth Brooks decided not to play at all, rather than perform 3 permitted dates
- Jay Z was attacked in an elevator by Beyonce’s sister Solange Knowles
- Austrian singer Conchita Wurst won the Eurovision Song Contest with her song ‘Rise like a Phoenix’
- In July, Australian entertainer Rolf Harris was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison after he was found guilty of indecently assaulting female minors
Today FM:
- Dermot & Dave started on Today FM – lunchtimes have never quite been the same
- Today FM’s Shave or Dye 2014 raised €1.4 million for the Irish Cancer Society, bringing the total amount raised for all five Shave or Dye campaigns to €7.5 million
- Today FM and Bord Gais Energy hosted the Best In Ireland Awards - seeking to reward the helpful people of Ireland
- Broadcaster Ray D’Arcy left Today FM after 14 years
In Ireland:
- 22,000 attendees from 109 countries attended the Web Summit at Dublin’s RDS over 3 days in November; Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria was the most-mentioned speaker at the Summit. Unfortunately, dodgy wifi let attendees down on more than one occasion
- A new system of domestic water charges was introduced - tens of thousands of people attended a demonstration lead by Right2Water near Leinster House in December to protest against the charges
- In April, President Michael D. Higgins paid the first state visit by an Irish President to the United Kingdom
- In May, Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence, Alan Shatter, resigned as a result of the inquiry by Senior Counsel Séan Guerin into allegations of Garda Síochána malpractice
In sport:
- The 40th Ryder Cup took place at Gleneagles, Scotland in September and Europe were led to victory by team captain Paul McGinley
- Brian O’Driscoll, the highest try scorer of all time in Irish Rugby, hung up his boots. He played his last match in a green shirt against France in March on the final weekend of a victorious Six Nations Championship, and his final game in the blue jersey of Leinster was the Pro12 final against Glasgow at the RDS in May
Phew! Worked out ok! Thanks for all the messages of support. Unreal feeling. Not easy taking this off for last time pic.twitter.com/Sq89BdLOnw
— Brian O'Driscoll (@BrianODriscoll) March 15, 2014
- Rory McIlroy called off his engagement to Caroline Wozniacki, days after the couple issued their wedding invitations. He then went on to win the 2014 Open Championship (British Open) and be a member of the winning Ryder Cup team
- Stephanie Roche made it to the final three for FIFA's Goal of the Year. Her goal for Peamount United against Wexford Youths goes up against Robin Van Persie’s (Netherlands) header goal against Spain and James Rodriguez’ (Colombia) goal against Uruguay – both at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Winner to be announced on 12th January 2015 in Zurich - vote here
- The 2014 Winter Olympics were held in Sochi - two weeks of sporting triumph, disappointment and a fair amount of controversy (from the fact that it was held in a subtropical seaside resort and needed an enormous quantity of artificial snow, to Putin’s law against "homosexual information")
- David Moyes was sacked 10 months after he succeeded Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester United. He was replaced by Dutch supremo Loius Van Gaal
- Roy Keane was appointed assistant manager at Aston Villa in June, and then quit five months later in November to focus on his role with the Ireland squad
Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane launch Club Ireland from Football Association of Ireland on Vimeo.
- Brazil played host to the 2014 FIFA World Cup: Germany defeated Argentina 1-0 in extra time, with the only goal being scored by Mario Götze
In world news:
- The world commemorated the 100th anniversary of the First World War - the Tower of London featured an installation of 888,246 poppies, one for each British and Commonwealth soldier killed in the First World War
- The Scots voted against independence in September’s Scottish Independence referendum
- In August, social media sites were taken over by the Ice Bucket Challenge campaign which raised awareness for ALS (or, here in Ireland, Motor Neurone Disease)
- The iCloud hacker scandal saw dozens (up to 100) of celebrity iCloud accounts being invaded, with nude photos leaked online
- Malaysian Airlines suffered two air disasters within 4 and a half months: flight MH370 disappeared on route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Saturday 8th March with 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers onboard; flight MH17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed in Ukraine on Thursday 17th July, presumed to have been shot down, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board
- The European Space Agency landed a spaceship on a fast-moving comet. The ESA mission, launched in 2004, is investigating comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Engineers claim the probe Philae could come back to life as soon as March after it bounced into shadow upon landing - find out more about the mission here:
- Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII were canonised on April 27th in an unprecedented double-canonisation mass in St Peter's Square
- South African athlete Oscar Pistorius was found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on 14th February 2013 but guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to 5 years in prison
- The world witnessed the largest and most complex outbreak of Ebola in West Africa since the virus first appeared in 1976; there have been more cases and deaths in this outbreak than all others combined
- On 14th April 2014, 276 female students were kidnapped from a school in Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria - responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by Boko Haram. Dozens of the kidnapped girls escaped shortly after their capture but approx 220 remain missing
- More than 2,200 people (the vast majority of them Gazans) were killed during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict which took place over 7 weeks from 8th July–26th August; between 10,895 and 11,100 people were wounded
- 2014 saw ISIS’ unexpected and meteoric rise to prominence. The organization (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) shocked the world as the jihadists turned on fellow militants in Syria, executed western captives and tried to wipe out Iraq's Yazidi religious minority
NEXT:
Check out the brilliant audio collage of the past 12 months in the brilliant 2014 in 2014ish seconds from the Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show.
