1879 in Ireland

Events

• Second year of Mini-famine which has its greatest impact in the "wet" West of Ireland where the potato harvest is greatly reduced, and the peat and cereal crops are too wet to harvest.
• 20 April – first of many "monster meetings" of tenant farmers held in Irishtown near Claremorris, County Mayo.
• 8 June – Charles Stewart Parnell at Westport, County Mayo meeting.
• 21 June – new Roman Catholic Thurles Cathedral consecrated.
• 16 August – Land League of Mayo founded at Castlebar.
• 21 August – claimed apparition at Knock, County Mayo, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist and Jesus Christ.
• 21 October – Irish National Land League founded at Dublin.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*Repeal of Convention Act of 1793.
• :*Start of the Land War.
• :*The Royal Dublin Society acquires its current premises at Ballsbridge.
• :*The Royal University of Ireland Act allows women to take university degrees on the same basis as men.
• :*The Religious Sisters of Charity open Our Lady's Hospice in Harold's Cross, Dublin.

  Arts and literature

• Charles Kickham's novel Knocknagow, or The Homes of Tipperary is published.

  Sport

• The Irish Rugby Football Union is founded, being an amalgamation of the Irish Football Union and the Northern Football Union of Ireland.
• 20 September – Cliftonville F.C. is founded in Belfast.

  Births

• 16 February – Hubert de Burgh, cricketer and naval officer.
• 20 March – Terence MacSwiney, playwright and poet, member of 1st Dáil, Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork.
• 9 April – William Meldon, cricketer.
• 20 April – Robert Wilson Lynd, journalist and nationalist.
• 22 May – Jack White, soldier, trade unionist, one of the co-founders of the Irish Citizen Army.
• 30 May – Elizabeth Cronin, traditional singer.
• 1 June – Freeman Wills Crofts, detective novelist and railway engineer.
• 11 July – Hugh Kennedy, only Attorney-General of Southern Ireland, first Attorney-General of the Irish Free State and first Chief Justice of the Irish Free State.
• 15 July
• *Margaret Buckley, president of Sinn Féin from 1937 to 1950.
• *Joseph Campbell, poet and lyricist.
• *James Crichton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1918 at Crèvecœur, France.
• 17 July – Seumas O'Sullivan, poet and editor.
• 3 August – Mary Devenport O'Neill, poet and dramatist.
• 20 August – Tom Barry, hurler .
• 23 September – E. Temple Thurston, poet, playwright and author.
• 15 October – Sara Allgood, actress.
• 10 November – Patrick Pearse, teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, executed.
• 4 December – Hamilton Harty, conductor and composer.
• 7 December – Austin Stack, Sinn Féin MP and TD, member of 1st Dáil.
• Full date unknown – Patrick Keohane, navy officer, member of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition.

  Deaths

• 22 January – Nevill Coghill, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the Battle of Isandhlwana, South Africa.
• 28 January – Hugh McNeile, Anglican churchman.
• 19 April – Francis Kelly, surveyor, business agent, farmer, and politician in Canada.
• 5 May – Isaac Butt, Irish Conservative Party MP and founder of the Home Rule League.
• 17 May – John McClintock, 1st Baron Rathdonnell, politician and Lord Lieutenant of County Louth 1866–1879.
• 9 June – Edward Butler, lawyer and politician in Australia.
• 10 July – John Byrne, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1854 at the Battle of Inkerman, Crimea.
• 3 September – Walter Hamilton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1879 at Futtehabad, Afghanistan.
• 15 September – Thomas Roberts Ferguson, businessman and politician in Ontario.
• 24 September – John Holmes, surveyor and politician in Ontario.
• 29 September – Edmund Falconer, actor-manager and dramatist.
• 6 November – Dennis Mahony, a founder of the Herald newspaper in Dubuque, Iowa.
• Full date unknown – John Pitt Kennedy, British military engineer, agricultural reformer and civil servant.