1856 in Ireland

← 1855 1854 1853 1852 1851 1856 in Ireland → 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s
See also:	1856 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1856 List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1856 in Ireland.

• 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.^[1]
• 29 September – the neoclassical Roman Catholic St Mel's cathedral, Longford, opens for worship.^[2]
• 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.

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• 14 February – Frank Harris, author, editor, journalist and publisher (died 1931).
• 20 March – John Lavery, artist (died 1941).
• 26 March – William Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand (died 1925 in New Zealand).
• 2 May – Matt Talbot, manual labourer and ascetic (died 1925).
• 26 July – George Bernard Shaw, playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) (died 1950).
• 18 August – Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1879 at Futtehabad, Afghanistan (died 1879).
• 17 November – Thomas Taggart, politician in the United States (died 1929).
• 28 November – Patrick O'Donnell, Cardinal, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (died 1927).
• 21 December
  • Catherine Coll, mother of Éamon de Valera (died 1932)
  • Sidney Royse Lysaght, writer (died 1941)
  • Tomás Ó Criomhthain, writer and fisherman (died 1937).

• 27 January – John Lalor, journalist and author (born 1814).
• 4 February – William Hare, 2nd Earl of Listowel, peer and MP (born 1801).
• 18 March – Henry Pottinger, soldier and colonial administrator, first Governor of Hong Kong (born 1789).
• 31 May – Yankee Sullivan, bare knuckle fighter and boxer (born 1811).
• 2 June – Robert Carew, 1st Baron Carew, politician (born 1787).
• 8 December – Father Theobald Mathew, temperance reformer (born 1790).

• 1856 in Scotland
• 1856 in Wales