1879 in Ireland

Events

*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.cite book | last=Moody, TW & Martin, FX (eds)| year=1967 |title=The Course of Irish History | publisher=The Mercier Press | location=Cork, Ireland | pages=p 378]
*16 August - Land League of Mayo founded at Castlebar.
*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 acquired its current premises at Ballsbridge, original fifteen acres compared to forty acres (60,000 to 160,000 m²) currently.

Arts and literature

port

*The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) was founded being an amagamation of the Irish Football Union and the Northern Football Union of Ireland.

Births

January to June

*16 February - Hubert de Burgh, cricketer (d.1960).
*20 March - Terence MacSwiney, playwright and poet, member of 1st Dáil, Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, died on 74th day of hunger strike (d.1920).
*9 April - William Meldon, cricketer (d.1957).
*1 June - Freeman Wills Crofts, novelist (d.1957).

July to December

*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 (d.1936).
*15 July - Joseph Campbell, poet and lyricist (d.1944).
*15 July - James Crichton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1918 at Crevecoeur, France (d.1961).
*17 July - Seamus O'Sullivan, poet and editor (d.1958).
*3 August - Mary Devenport O'Neill, poet and dramatist (d.1967).
*23 September - E. Temple Thurston, poet, playwright and author (d.1933).
*31 October - Sara Allgood, actress (d.1950).
*10 November - Patrick Pearse, teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, executed (d.1916).
*4 December - Hamilton Harty, conductor and composer (d.1941).
*7 December - Austin Stack, Sinn Féin MP and TD, member of 1st Dáil (d.1929).

Full date unknown

*Margaret Buckley, president of Sinn Féin from 1937 to 1950 (d.1962).
*Joseph Campbell, poet and lyricist (d.1944).
*Elizabeth Cronin, traditional singer (d.1956).
*Patrick Keohane, navy officer, member of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition (d.1950).
*Robert Wilson Lynd, writer (d.1949).
*Sam Maguire, Irish Republican and Gaelic footballer (d.1927).
*Jack White, soldier, trade unionist, one of the co-founders of the Irish Citizen Army (d.1946).

Deaths

*22 January - Nevill Coghill, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the Battle of Isandhlwana, South Africa (b.1852).
*28 January - Hugh McNeile, Anglican churchman (b.1795).
*19 April - Francis Kelly, surveyor, business agent, farmer, and politician in Canada (b.1803).
*5 May - Isaac Butt, Irish Conservative Party MP and founder of the Home Rule League (b.1818).
*17 May - John McClintock, 1st Baron Rathdonnell, politician and Lord Lieutenant of County Louth 1866-1879. (b.1798).
*9 June - Edward Butler, lawyer and politician in Australia (d.1823).
*10 July - John Byrne, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1854 at the Battle of Inkerman, Crimea (b.1832).
*3 September - Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1879 at Futtehabad, Afghanistan (b.1856).
*15 September - Thomas Roberts Ferguson, businessman and politician in Ontario (b.1818).
*24 September - John Holmes, surveyor and politician in Ontario (b.1828).
*6 November - Dennis Mahony, one of the founders of the Dubuque "Herald" (now the "Telegraph Herald"), a newspaper in Dubuque, Iowa (b.1821).

Full date unknown

*John Pitt Kennedy, British military engineer, agricultural reformer and civil servant (b.1796).

References