Events from the year 1953 in Ireland. Incumbents President: Seán T. O'Kelly Taoiseach: Éamon de Valera (FF) Tánaiste: Seán Lemass (FF) Minister for Finance: Seán MacEntee (FF) Chief Justice: Conor Maguire Dáil: 14th Seanad: 7th Events 18 January – Sinn Féin decided to contest all 12 constituencies in the next Westminster elections in Northern Ireland. 15 March – Up to 10,000 civil servants marched on O'Connell Street in Dublin demanding a just wage. 16 March – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. asked the American Congress to support a United Ireland. 27 April – Maud Gonne MacBride died at her home in Dublin aged 88. 1 May – The BBC brought into service the first television transmitter in Ireland, at Glencairn (Belfast). 3 June – Five hundred unemployed men marched to Kildare Street demanding employment, not dole. 6 July – A thousand unemployed people sat on O'Connell Bridge for 15 minutes of protest. 2 August – Murlough Bay in the Antrim Glens was chosen as the future grave of Roger Casement. Taoiseach Éamon de Valera called for the return of his remains. 29 August – Kilmainham Gaol is to be preserved as a national monument. 30 August – A new synagogue was dedicated in Terenure in Dublin (designed by Wilfrid Cantwell). 1 September – The Great Northern Railway was sold to the governments of the Republic and Northern Ireland and managed by a joint board. 21 September – The Irish Ploughing Team left Dublin for the World Ploughing Championships in Canada. 20 October – Busáras opened in Dublin (designed by Michael Scott), CIÉ's country bus station and the first significant international style building in Ireland. 28 October – Three of Dáil Éireann's Independent TDs became members of Fianna Fáil. 30 October – Standish Vereker, 7th Viscount Gort, purchased Bunratty Castle to restore it. 17 November – The Great Blasket Island was depopulated. 18 December – The Censorship Board banned almost 100 publications on the grounds that they were indecent or obscene. Arts and literature 5 January – Samuel Beckett's play Waiting For Godot had its first public stage première in French as En attendant Godot in Paris. His novel The Unnamable was also published in French this year. 5–26 April – The first An Tóstal festivals of national culture (devised by Seán Lemass) were held. 8 August – Chester Beatty Library in Dublin opened to the public. Writer Brian O'Nolan was obliged