16 February – An Irish Premiership match between Crusaders and Cliftonville was called off on security advice following a Union flag demonstration outside the ground.[1]
23 February – Ryan Dolan from Strabane, County Tyrone, was announced as Ireland's entry for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.[2]
c. February – The last working Irish linen factory in Belfast closed.[3]
17 April – The Dalai LamaTenzin Gyatso, as patron of the charity Children in Crossfire, began a two-day visit to Derry where he was guest of honour at a Culture of Compassion event. He last visited the city in July 2007.[5][6][7]
c. 29 May – Echlinville Distillery at Kircubbin, County Down, was granted the first licence to distil spirits in Northern Ireland in over 130 years.[10]
25 October – Two letter bombs, one addressed to the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Matt Baggott, and another to a senior police officer, were defused by bomb disposal experts at postal sorting offices in Mallusk and Lisburn in County Antrim.[12]
28 October – A letter bomb delivered to the offices of the Public Prosecution Service at Foyle Chambers on Limavady Road in Derry was made safe and taken for forensic examination.[13]
29 October – A letter bomb was sent to Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers. Bomb disposal officers were called to Stormont Castle to deal with it. Villiers was in London at the time.[14]
November
15 November – Musician Van Morrison was awarded the freedom of Belfast.[15]
20 November – A bus driver in Derry was ordered by suspected IRA militants to deliver a bomb to police headquarters, a frequent IRA target. She agreed, but parked the bus and called police, who removed the bomb.[16]
24 November – A man was stopped in the Ardoyne area of Belfast by three masked men and forced to drive a bomb to Victoria Square shopping centre in the city centre. The detonator ignited while bomb disposal experts prepared to examine the car but it failed to trigger an explosion.[17]
27 November – Liam Adams, the brother of Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, was sentenced to sixteen years in prison by Laganside Crown Court in Belfast for sexually abusing his daughter Áine.[18]
13 December – An explosion occurred in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast when extremists opposed to the peace in Northern Ireland left a sports bag containing an explosive on the pavement. Christmas revellers evacuated nearby bars and restaurants. Óglaigh na hÉireann claimed responsibility[20][21]
16 December – The army defused a pipe bomb found in the garden of a house in West Belfast. Later, a fire bomb being carried by an extremist ignited in a shop in the Cornmarket shopping district in Belfast, setting the bomber on fire. He fled through the streets in flames, while the device was taken outside by a member of the shop's staff.[20][22] A man was arrested five days later.[23]
31 December – The six-month Haass negotiations concluded without resolving inter-community conflict over flags, parades, and the history of The Troubles.[25][26]
