1909 in Ireland

Events

• 31 October – the Royal University of Ireland is dissolved.
• 14 December – in the large hall of the National University in Dublin, Ernest Shackleton delivers a lecture entitled 'Nearest the South Pole.'
• 31 December – Harry Ferguson becomes the first person to fly an aircraft in Ireland, when he takes off in a monoplane he had designed and built himself.
• Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast is officially recognised as a university teaching hospital.
• Commencement of fieldwork for the multidisciplinary Clare Island Survey, under the direction of Robert Lloyd Praeger.

  Arts and literature

• 1 April – Lennox Robinson's first play, The Cross Roads, is performed at the Abbey Theatre of which he becomes manager later in the year.
• 22 July – widowed Irish-born painter John Lavery marries Irish American painter Hazel Martyn.
• 20 August – the famous tenor Enrico Caruso performs at the Theatre Royal in Dublin.
• 20 December – the first dedicated cinema in Ireland, the Volta Cinematograph, opens in Dublin under the management of James Joyce.
• Herbert Hughes' collection of folk songs, Irish Country Songs, including "She Moved Through the Fair" with words largely composed by Padraic Colum, is published.
• Ella Young's first work of Irish folklore, The Coming of Lugh, is published.

  Sport

Football

• ;International
• :13 February England 4–0 Ireland
• :15 March Scotland 5–0 Ireland
• :20 March Ireland 2–3 Wales
• ;Irish League
• :Winners: Linfield
• ;Irish Cup
• :Winners: Cliftonville 0-0, 2-1 Bohemians

  Births

• 9 January – Patrick Peyton, the Rosary Priest.
• 30 January – George Crothers, cricketer.
• 1 February – Timothy McAuliffe, Labour Party politician.
• 8 March – Francis MacManus, novelist.
• 3 April – Knox Cunningham, barrister, businessman and Ulster Unionist politician.
• 19 April – Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, cryptanalyst, chess player and chess writer.
• 24 April –
• *Robert Farren, poet.
• *David Beers Quinn, historian.
• 30 April – F. E. McWilliam, sculptor.
• 4 June – Robert Dudley Edwards, historian.
• 7 July – Cecilia Thackaberry, Presentation Sisters nun, killed in Nigeria performing relief work.
• 24 July – Geoffrey Bing, lawyer and Labour politician in UK.
• 31 July – Martin White, Kilkenny hurler.
• 1 August – W. R. Rodgers, poet, essayist, book reviewer, radio broadcaster, scriptwriter, lecturer, teacher and Presbyterian minister.
• 4 October – Paddy Moore, soccer player.
• 7 October – Michael O'Neill, nationalist politician and MP.
• 20 October – James Patrick Scully, awarded George Cross for valour in 1941 in Liverpool in rescuing people from a bomb damaged building.
• 28 October – Francis Bacon, painter.
• 4 November – Sir Basil Goulding, 3rd Baronet, cricketer, squash player and art collector.
• 29 November – James Auchmuty, historian.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*Muriel Brandt, artist.
• :*Jack Stanley Gibson, surgeon and writer.
• :*Gabriel Hayes, sculptor, designer of Irish coins.
• :*W. R. Rodgers, poet and writer.

  Deaths

• 10 January - John Conness, United States Senator from California from 1863 till 1869.
• 4 February - James Lynam Molloy, poet, songwriter and composer.
• 3 March - Bishop Richard Owens, Bishop of Clogher 1894-1909.
• 19 March - Charles Guilfoyle Doran, Clerk of Works St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh.
• 24 March - William Lundon, Irish Parliamentary Party MP.
• 24 March – J. M. Synge, author and playwright, dies in Dublin aged 38 of Hodgkin's disease. His only comedy The Tinker's Wedding has its première on 11 November at His Majesty's Theatre in London.
• 4 April - Sir Theobald Burke, 13th Baronet.
• 22 May - Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, 4th Baronet, Liberal Party MP.
• 3 June - Charlotte Grace O'Brien, political and social activist, writer and plant collector.
• 15 July - George Tyrrell, expelled Jesuit priest and Modernist Catholic scholar.
• 1 December - William Joseph Corbet, nationalist politician and MP.