1879 in Ireland

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Decades: 1850s • 1860s • 1870s • 1880s • 1890s Centuries: 17th • 18th • 19th • 20th • 21st See also: 1879 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1879 List of years 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.^[1]
• 16 August - Land League of Mayo founded at Castlebar.^[1]
• 21 August - Claimed apparation at Knock, County Mayo, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist and Jesus Christ (as the Lamb of God).
• 21 October - Irish National Land League founded at Dublin.^[1]

Full date unknown

• Repeal of Convention Act of 1793.^[1]
• Start of the Land War.^[1]
• The Royal Dublin Society acquires its current premises at Ballsbridge (15 acres (61,000 m²) compared to forty acres (60,000 to 160,000 m²) currently).

Arts and literature

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Sport

• 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 Crèvecœur, France (d.1961).
  • Margaret Buckley, president of Sinn Féin from 1937 to 1950 (d.1962).
• 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

• 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