1849 in Ireland

Events

• 30–31 March – Doolough Tragedy: At least 16 died when hundreds of the destitute and starving were forced to make a fatiguing journey on foot to receive outdoor relief in County Mayo.
• 21 April – Great Famine: 96 inmates of the overcrowded Ballinrobe Union Workhouse died over the course of the preceding week from illness and other famine-related conditions, a record high. This year's potato crop again failed and there were renewed outbreaks of cholera.
• 29 April – Brig Hannah carrying emigrants from Newry fleeing the Great Famine to Canada hit ice and sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and her senior officers abandoned the passengers to their fate. Around one-third of those on board, 49, died.
• 12 July – Dolly's Brae conflict: Up to 1,400 armed Orangemen marched from Rathfriland to Tollymore Park near Castlewellan, County Down. When 1,000 armed Ribbonmen gathered, shots were fired, Catholic homes were burnt and about eighty Catholics killed.
• 16 July – The Donaghadee to Portpatrick packet service was withdrawn.
• 2–12 August – Queen Victoria visited Cork, Dublin and Belfast, landing on 3 August at Cove, which was renamed Queenstown in her honour, and departing from Kingstown. She officially opened Queen's Bridge in Belfast.
• 18 October – The Great Southern and Western Railway opened to Cork.
• Construction began on the 18-arch Craigmore Viaduct near Newry, on the Dublin-Belfast railway line.
• George Boole was appointed as first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork.
• William Thompson began publication of The Natural History of Ireland, with the first volume, on birds.

Births

• 31 January – Robert James McMordie, solicitor, politician and Lord Mayor of Belfast.
• 12 February – John Edward Robinson, Missionary Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
• 18 May – John Clark, boxer.
• 4 July – John Stanislaus Joyce, businessman, civil servant, and father of the writer James Joyce.
• 9 July – Robert McCall, lawyer.
• 1 August – William Larminie, poet and folklorist.
• 16 August – James Buchanan, 1st Baron Woolavington, businessman and philanthropist.
• 24 October – Nugent Everard, soldier, Seanad member.
• 19 November – James Mason, chess player and writer.
• 12 December – Peter F. Collier, publisher
• Charles James O'Donnell, colonial administrator and MP.

Deaths

• 21 January – Anthony Manahan, businessman and politician in Upper Canada.
• 26 January – Thomas Arbuthnot, British military officer.
• 7 March – Maurice FitzGerald, 18th Knight of Kerry, Whig politician.
• 27 March – Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, MP, Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada and Governor General of British North America.
• 22 May – Maria Edgeworth, novelist.
• 28 May – Joseph Blake, 3rd Baron Wallscourt, socialist.
• 20 June – James Clarence Mangan, poet .
• September – Daniel Robertson, architect and garden designer.
• 27 December – James Fintan Lalor, revolutionary, journalist and writer.