Events from the year 1943 in Ireland. Incumbents President: Douglas Hyde Taoiseach: Éamon de Valera (FF) Events February – Erwin Schrödinger delivers the series of public lectures later published as What Is Life? under the auspices of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies at Trinity College. 1 February – the Currency Commission is renamed the Central Bank of Ireland (under terms of the Central Bank Act 1942); it is not, however, given all the powers expected of a central bank. 23 February – S.S. Kyleclare torpedoed in North Atlantic by : eighteen die. 23–24 February – Cavan Orphanage Fire: thirty-five girls and a cook from St Joseph's Orphanage, an industrial school in Cavan, are killed in a fire in their dormitories. A subsequent inquiry absolves the Poor Clares of blame. 17 March Éamon de Valera and his government celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a céilí in the Great Hall of Dublin Castle. de Valera makes the speech "The Ireland That We Dreamed Of", commonly called the "comely maidens" speech. British military aircraft crashes at Templeport, Tullyhaw, County Cavan: pilot and navigator survive. April – 8 republicans interned at Curragh Camp begin a hunger strike for release. 1 May – Sir Basil Brooke becomes Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. 15 May – Irish Oak (Irish Shipping) torpedoed and sunk by U-607, 700 miles west of Ireland: crew rescued by Irish Plane eight hours later. 2 June – S.S. City of Bremen (Saorstat & Continental Steam Ship Company) bombed by a Junkers 88 and sunk in the Bay of Biscay: all eleven crew rescued by a Spanish fishing trawler. 23 June – 1943 Irish general election: Fianna Fáil under Éamon de Valera remain in power, but lose their parliamentary majority. Electoral gains are made by the Labour Party and Clann na Talmhan, the national agricultural party. Members of the 11th Dáil assemble on 1 July. 5 October – in the largest manufacturing campaign in the history of the Irish Sugar Company, seven hundred employees at the Carlow Sugar Beet Factory will work in three shifts without pause for 18 weeks until all the 230,000 acres (930 km2) of beet is processed. 29 December – (with a crew of 11) rescues 164 Germans from the Bay of Biscay. Winter – Irish coffee first served, at Foynes. Arts and literature 26 April – M. J. Molloy's first play, the comedy Old Road, is premiered