1858 in Ireland

Events

• 17 March – In Dublin, James Stephens founds the revolutionary organisation which becomes known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
• Edward Harland, at this time general manager, buys the small shipyard on Queen's Island, Belfast, from his employer Robert Hickson in conjunction with Gustav Wilhelm Wolff.
• Ballinacourty lighthouse at Dungarvan harbour built.

  Arts and literature

• First free public library in Ireland opens in Dundalk.

  Sport

Births

• 11 January – Mildred Anne Butler, painter.
• 13 February – James Murray Irwin, British Army doctor.
• 6 March – Coslett Herbert Waddell, priest and botanist.
• 11 March – Tom Clarke, republican.
• 2 May – Edith Anna Somerville, novelist.
• 19 May – Mike Cleary, boxer.
• 5 October – Thomas Cusack, Democrat U.S. Representative from Illinois.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*Anne Marjorie Robinson, artist.

  Deaths

• 4 March – John Ryan, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 at Lucknow, India, killed in action.
• 26 April – Francis Murphy, first Roman Catholic bishop of Adelaide, South Australia.
• 22 July – Mary Aikenhead, founder of the Sisters of Charity.
• 28 July – Alexander Wright, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1855 at Sebastopol, in the Crimea.
• 17 August – Robert Cane, doctor, member of the Repeal Association and the Irish Confederation, Mayor of Kilkenny.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*John Hogan, sculptor.
• :*Benjamin Lett, bomber and arsonist in America and Canada.
• :*James Roche Verling, British Army surgeon, became personal surgeon to Napoleon Bonaparte on St Helena.