1909 in Ireland

← 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1909 in Ireland → 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914
Centuries:	18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s
See also:	1909 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1909 List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 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 (Dublin) 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 (in Bradford)

  15 March Scotland 5–0 Ireland (in Glasgow)

  20 March Ireland 2–3 Wales (in Belfast)

• Irish League

  Winners: Linfield

• Irish Cup

  Winners: Cliftonville 0-0, 2-1 Bohemians

Births

• 9 January – Patrick Peyton, the Rosary Priest (died 1992).
• 30 January – George Crothers, cricketer (died 1982).
• 1 February – Timothy McAuliffe, Labour Party politician (died 1985).
• 8 March – Francis MacManus, novelist (died 1965).
• 3 April – Knox Cunningham, barrister, businessman and Ulster Unionist politician (died 1976).
• 19 April – Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, cryptanalyst, chess player and chess writer (died 1974).
• 24 April –
  • Robert Farren (Roibeárd Ó Faracháin), poet (died 1984).
  • David Beers Quinn, historian (died 2002).
• 30 April – F. E. McWilliam, sculptor (died 1992).
• 4 June – Robert Dudley Edwards, historian (died 1988).
• 7 July – Cecilia Thackaberry, Presentation Sisters nun, killed in Nigeria performing relief work (died 1969).
• 24 July – Geoffrey Bing, lawyer and Labour politician in UK (died 1977).
• 31 July – Martin White, Kilkenny hurler (died 2011).
• 1 August – W. R. Rodgers, poet, essayist, book reviewer, radio broadcaster, scriptwriter, lecturer, teacher and Presbyterian minister (died 1969).
• 4 October – Paddy Moore, soccer player (died 1951).
• 7 October – Michael O'Neill, nationalist politician and MP (died 1976).
• 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 (died 1992).
• 4 November – Sir Basil Goulding, 3rd Baronet, cricketer, squash player and art collector (died 1982).
• 29 November – James Auchmuty, historian (died 1981).

  Full date unknown

  • Muriel Brandt, artist (died 1981).
  • Jack Stanley Gibson, surgeon and writer (died 2005).
  • Gabriel Hayes, sculptor, designer of Irish coins (died 1978).
  • W. R. Rodgers, poet and writer (died 1969).

Deaths

• 10 January - John Conness, United States Senator from California from 1863 till 1869. (born 1821)
• 4 February - James Lynam Molloy, poet, songwriter and composer (b.c1837).
• 3 March - Bishop Richard Owens, Bishop of Clogher 1894-1909 (born 1840).
• 19 March - Charles Guilfoyle Doran, Clerk of Works St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh (born 1835).
• 24 March - William Lundon, Irish Parliamentary Party MP (born 1839).
• 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 (born 1833).
• 22 May - Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, 4th Baronet, Liberal Party MP (born 1839).
• 3 June - Charlotte Grace O'Brien, political and social activist, writer and plant collector (born 1845).
• 15 July - George Tyrrell, expelled Jesuit priest and Modernist Catholic scholar (born 1861).
• 1 December - William Joseph Corbet, nationalist politician and MP (born 1824).