Events from the year 1940 in Ireland. Incumbents President: Douglas Hyde Taoiseach: Éamon de Valera (FF) Events January – the Irish Naval Service acquires the first of its six Motor Torpedo Boats, M1. 3 January – Tomás Óg Mac Curtain shoots and mortally wounds Detective Garda Síochána John Roche in Cork city centre. He had been earlier disarmed by Garda Pat Malone in 1935 and on this occasion he was spared the death penalty in view of his father's history. 17 January – Enid (Captain Wibe) of neutral Norway sailing from Steinkjer to Dublin, 10 miles north of Shetland, goes to assist SS Polzella which has been torpedoed by German submarine U-25 which then shells and sinks Enid. 7 February – Munster (Capt. R. Paisley) mined and sunk in Irish Sea entering Liverpool. 3 March Flooding of Poulaphouca Reservoir begins by damming the River Liffey at Poulaphouca as part of the Electricity Supply Board project to build Ireland's second hydroelectricity generating station together with an improved water supply for Dublin. Cato (Capt. Richard Martin), British, from Dublin to Bristol, strikes a mine 2.5 miles west of Nash Point: 13 die, 2 survive. 9 March – trawler Leukos sunk by gunfire from , north west of Tory Island – 11 dead. (She may have moved between the surfacing U-boat and English trawlers, in the hope that the tricolour would protect her while the English escaped.) 10 March – City of Bremen rescues 33 crew of Amor (Dutch) in the North Sea. 29 March – fire destroys the roof and upper rooms of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. 20–24 April – Plan Kathleen, an Irish Republican Army plan for a Nazi German invasion of Northern Ireland, is presented to the Abwehr. April – two men die on hunger strike for political status in Mountjoy Jail (Dublin). 4 May – Operation Mainau: German agent Hermann Görtz is parachuted into Ireland to make contact with the IRA. 24 May – first secret meeting to formulate 'Plan W', joint action in the event of a German invasion of Ireland, is held between Irish officials and British military in London. 27 May The Churchill war ministry in London agrees to seek co-operation from de Valera and creation of an All-Ireland Council during "the present emergency". Uruguay of neutral Argentina sailing from Rosario to Limerick with 6,000 tons of maize, sinks with scuttling charges by 160 miles from