1856 in Ireland

Events

• 1 January – M. H. Gill, printer to Dublin University, purchases the publishing and bookselling business of James McGlashan, renaming it McGlashan & Gill, the predecessor of Gill & Macmillan.
• 29 September – the neoclassical Roman Catholic St Mel's cathedral, Longford, opens for worship.
• 22 October
• * Coláiste Mhuire in Mullingar, County Westmeath opens its doors to students.
• * Grand National Banquet for soldiers returned from the Crimean War in a warehouse in Custom House docks, Dublin.
• 13 November – George Samuel Little, cashier for the Midland Great Western Railway was murdered in his office at the Broadstone railway station by handyman James Spollen. Dublin was transfixed by the case for months afterwards.

Births

• 14 February – Frank Harris, author, editor, journalist and publisher.
• 20 March – John Lavery, artist.
• 26 March – William Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
• 2 May – Matt Talbot, manual labourer and ascetic.
• 26 July – George Bernard Shaw, playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature .
• 18 August – Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1879 at Futtehabad, Afghanistan.
• 17 November – Thomas Taggart, politician in the United States.
• 28 November – Patrick O'Donnell, Cardinal, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.
• 21 December
• *Catherine Coll, mother of Éamon de Valera
• *Sidney Royse Lysaght, writer
• *Tomás Ó Criomhthain, writer and fisherman.

Deaths

• 27 January – John Lalor, journalist and author.
• 4 February – William Hare, 2nd Earl of Listowel, peer and MP.
• 18 March – Henry Pottinger, soldier and colonial administrator, first Governor of Hong Kong.
• 31 May – Yankee Sullivan, bare knuckle fighter and boxer.
• 2 June – Robert Carew, 1st Baron Carew, politician.
• 8 December – Father Theobald Mathew, temperance reformer.