1861 in Ireland

Centuries:	17th; 18th; 19th; 20th; 21st;
Decades:	1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s;
See also:	1861 in the United Kingdom; Other events of 1861 ; List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1861 in Ireland.

Events

8–10 April – John George Adair of Glenveagh Castle evicts tenants at Derryveagh in County Donegal.^[1]^[2]
18 June – completion and official inauguration of the Wellington Monument, Dublin, in Phoenix Park, built to the design of Sir Robert Smirke (begun 1817).^[1]
21–30 August – Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, visit Ireland.^[1] They visit the Curragh Camp where Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, serving with the Grenadier Guards, has taken the actress Nellie Clifden as his first lover.^[3]
24 August – Mater Misericordiae Hospital is opened in Dublin by the Sisters of Mercy (architect: John Bourke).^[1]
17 September – the SS Great Eastern, with a badly damaged rudder, anchors in Cork Harbour for temporary repairs.^[4]
Reconstruction of Fort Camden as part of the Cork Harbour defences begins.
Irish Famine (1861)

July – Sheridan Le Fanu becomes editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine.^[5] From October he begins serialization of his novel The House by the Churchyard in it.

23 January – Katharine Tynan, novelist and poet (died 1931).
6 February – George Tyrrell, expelled Jesuit priest and Modernist Catholic scholar (died 1909).
19 March – Joseph MacRory, Cardinal, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (died 1945).^[6]
15 April – William Hoey Kearney Redmond, nationalist politician, barrister, brother of John Redmond, killed in Battle of Messines (died 1917).
21 June – Nathaniel Thomas Hone, cricketer (died 1881).
16 October – J. B. Bury, historian, classical scholar and philologist (died 1927).
3 November – Thomas O'Brien Butler, composer (died 1915 in the sinking of RMS Lusitania).
5 November – Sir Tim O'Brien, 3rd Baronet, cricketer (died 1948).
Full date unknown
- Frank Duffy, labour leader in America (died 1955).
- Nathaniel Hill, artist (died 1934).
- Leonard Greenham Star Molloy, soldier, doctor, M.P. (died 1937)

13 May – William Henry Fitton, geologist (born 1780).
19 May – Mother Frances Mary Teresa Ball, founder of Irish Branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Loreto schools (born 1794).
27 June – Robert O'Hara Burke, explorer of Australia (born 1821).
11 August – Catherine Hayes, opera diva (born 1818).
10 December – John O'Donovan, scholar and first historic topographer (born 1806).

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Moody, T. W.; et al., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland. 8: A Chronology of Irish History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-821744-2.
^ "Owners & Evictions". Glenveagh National Park. Archived from the original on October 21, 2009. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
^ Hibbert, Christopher (2000). Queen Victoria: A Personal History. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-638843-4.
^ "The Great Eastern in a Storm — she Experiences a terrific gale and Breaks her Rudder, &c.", The Daily Dispatch, 1861-10-22, retrieved 2013-03-21
^ McCormack, W. J. (1997). Sheridan Le Fanu. Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-1489-0 pp. 198–199.
^ "MultiText – Joseph Macroy". Archived from the original on 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2007-04-14.