1846 in Ireland

Events

• Ongoing – Great Hunger: The first deaths from hunger take place early in the year. Phytophthora infestans almost totally destroys the summer potato crop and the Famine worsens considerably. By December a third of a million destitute people are employed on public works.
• 13 March – Ballinlass incident: eviction of 300 tenants at the village of Ballinlass in County Galway.
• 22 September – the Great Western Steamship Company's, bound from Liverpool for New York, runs aground in Dundrum Bay (County Down). She lies here for almost a year, protected by temporary measures organised by her designer, I. K. Brunel.
• Maziere Brady succeeds Sir Edward Sugden as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, an office which he will hold until 1866.
• HM Prison Crumlin Road in Belfast is opened with the arrival of the first inmates, who are forced to walk from Carrickfergus Prison in chains.
• The first substantial English translation of the Annals of the Four Masters, made by Owen Connellan, is published.
• The Anglo-Celt newspaper begins weekly publication in Cavan.
• Historian Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh 's Chorographical description of West or Iar Connacht is first published.

Births

• 10 February – Lord Charles Beresford, British admiral
• 13 February – John O'Connor Power, Irish Nationalist politician and Member of Parliament.
• 25 March – Michael Davitt, republican, nationalist agrarian agitator, social campaigner, labour leader and Irish National Land League founder.
• 27 June – Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader.
• 30 June – Frances Margaret Milne, author and librarian.
• 22 July – Alfred Perceval Graves, writer.
• 13 August – Otto Jaffe, twice elected as Irish Unionist Party Lord Mayor of Belfast.
• 10 September – John F. Finerty, U.S. Representative from Illinois.
• 18 September – Standish James O'Grady, author, journalist and historian.
• 23 August – Sir Henry Bellingham, 4th Baronet, politician and barrister.
• 9 October – Frank Hugh O'Donnell, writer and nationalist politician.
• 18 November – Samuel Cleland Davidson, inventor and engineer

Deaths

• 3 April – Zozimus, comic poet
• 12 October – Lawrence Kavenagh, bushranger
• exact date unknown – George Darley, poet, novelist and critic.