1890 in Ireland
Events from the year 1890 in Ireland.
Events
- 30 April – James Connolly marries Lillie Reynolds in Perth, Scotland.
- 20 June – the newly covered St George's Market in Belfast is opened to the public.
- 16 July - Academics Alfred Cort Haddon and Andrew Francis Dixon, remove the partial skeletal remains of 13 people, including their skulls, from St Colman's monastery on the island of Inishbofin, County Galway for the purposes of studying craniometry.
- July – the new Guildhall in Derry, financed by Irish Society">Irish language">Irish Society, is opened.
- 17 November – Captain Willy O'Shea divorces his wife, Kitty, and wins custody of their children. Charles Stewart Parnell is named as the co-respondent.
- 25 November – despite his personal problems Parnell is re-elected as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party.
- 26 November – Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone announces that as long as Parnell remains as leader of the Party, the next general election will be lost and Home Rule for Ireland will be impossible.
- 6 December – after five days of discussion and argument about Parnell's leadership, 44 members of the Irish Parliamentary Party walk out of the meeting and withdraw from the Party, most going on to form the Irish National Federation. Parnell is left with only 28 supporters in the Irish National League.
- Seapoint tragedy: James O'Connor's wife and four of their daughters die after eating contaminated mussels.
- Albert Bridge, Belfast is completed.
- Dublin Museum of Science and Art opens.
- The parish church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Ennis becomes pro-cathedral for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe.
- The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland is founded.
- A study finds that the most common Irish surnames are Murphy, Kelly, O'Sullivan and Walshe.
Arts and literature
- July – Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray first published, in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.
- 13 December – W. B. Yeats' poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree first published, in The National Observer (London).
- Douglas Hyde's Beside the Fire first published.
Sport
Football
- ;International
- :8 February Wales 5–2 Ireland
- :15 March Ireland 1–9 England
- :29 March Ireland 1–4 Scotland
- ;Irish Cup
- :Winners: Gordon Highlanders 2–2, 3–1 Cliftonville
- The Irish Football League is formed.
- Solitude football ground in Belfast, the home of Cliftonville, is opened, making it the oldest football ground in Ireland.
- 6 September – Bohemian Football Club is founded in Dublin in the Gate Lodge of Phoenix Park.
Births
- 28 January – Eoin O'Duffy, leader in the Irish Republican Army, Garda Commissioner, first leader of Fine Gael and the Blueshirts, leader of the volunteer Francoist Irish Brigade (Spanish Civil War) and sports administrator.
- 12 February – Conn Ward, Fianna Fáil politician.
- 23 March – James Gogarty, rebel in Easter Rising, first known I.R.B. casualty of the Irish War of Independence.
- 11 April – Debroy Somers, bandleader.
- 17 May – David P. Tyndall, businessman.
- 1 June – Edward Hutchinson Synge, theoretical physicist
- 11 July – William O'Dwyer, judge, District Attorney and 100th Mayor of New York City.
- 6 September – Brinsley MacNamara, born John Weldon, novelist and playwright.
- 12 October – Bill Britton, athlete and British Empire Games medallist.
- 16 October – Michael Collins, Revolutionary and Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Free State Army, Cabinet Minister.
- 30 October – Arthur Bateman, cricketer.
- 1 December – The Hon. Mary Westenra, later Mary Bailey, aviator.
- 25 December – Robert Burgess, rugby union player.
- 31 December – Frederick Crowley, Fianna Fáil politician.
Deaths
- 12 January – Anthony Lefroy, Irish Conservative Party MP for Longford in the United Kingdom Parliament.
- 14 March – C. P. Meehan, priest, poet and writer.
- 4 April – Charles Joseph Alleyn, lawyer and political figure in Quebec.
- 12 April – James P. Boyd, businessman and politician in Ontario.
- 27 May – James O'Connor, first Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha.
- 29 May – Samuel Mullen, bookseller.
- 20 July – Sir Richard Wallace, 1st Baronet, art collector and MP.
- 10 August – John Boyle O'Reilly, poet and novelist.
- 18 September – Dion Boucicault, actor and playwright.
- Full date unknown – John Coghlan, public works engineer in Argentina.