1888 in Ireland

← 1887 1886 1885 1884 1883 1888 in Ireland → 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893
Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s
See also:	1888 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1888 List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1888 in Ireland.

Events[]

• January – the Chaine Memorial at Larne is completed.
• March – the is founded by W. B. Yeats.
• April – Pope Leo XIII issues a decree denouncing the "Plan of Campaign" as the Holy Office issues a rescript to the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Ireland to boycott the Campaign. This is ignored by many.
• 4 June–27 October – Irish Exhibition at Olympia (London).^[1]
• 20 August – the Christian Brothers College is founded in Cork.
• September
  • James Joyce enters the Clongowes Wood College as the school's youngest student.
  • (approx. date) James Connolly deserts from his British Army regiment in Dublin and moves to Dundee.
• Irish members of the British House of Commons attempt to introduce an Irish Local Government Bill; however the Bill is opposed by Chief Secretary Arthur Balfour.
• Belfast is awarded city status by Queen Victoria.
• The Belfast Central Library is founded.
• A large flock of 110 Pallas's sandgrouse, a rare species of birds in Ireland, is recorded, one of the last known migrations witnessed in Ireland.
• W. B. Yeats joins the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society.
• James Daly sells the Connaught Telegraph to employee T. H. Gillespie.
• Thomas Lindsay Buick becomes Secretary of the Gladstone branch of the Irish National League.
• Reverend Henry Lett publishes a research paper on several unknown forms of fungi found in Ulster; however this document, as well as other research by Lett, is later lost.

Arts and literature[]

• 10 May – J. M. Synge arrives in the Aran Islands for his first visit.
• William Allingham publishes .
• publishes .
• publishes .
• John Kells Ingram publishes and .
• publishes .
• MacGregor Mathers publishes .
• Kuno Meyer publishes The Wooing of Emer.
• George Moore publishes Spring Days.
• 'Esperanza' (Jane, Lady Wilde) publishes Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, with sketches of the Irish past.
• Oscar Wilde publishes The Happy Prince.
• W. B. Yeats publishes and writes Down by the Salley Gardens.
• begins touring Ireland nationally. It has continued without a break since then making it one of the oldest continuously touring circuses in the world.^[2]

Sport[]

Cricket[]

• Several Irish Cricket Teams travel for their second tour of Canada and the United States.

Football[]

• International

  3 March Wales 11–0 Ireland (in Wrexham)^[3]

  24 March Ireland 2–10 Scotland (in Belfast)^[3]

  7 April Ireland 1–5 England (in Belfast)^[3]

  Irish Cup

  Winners: Cliftonville 2–1 Distillery

• Distillery win the Irish Junior Cup.

Gaelic Games[]

• Several Cavan GAA football teams are formed including the , Castletara, , , , , , , , and the .
• April – the First Cavan GAA All Ireland Finals is held in Birr.
• 7 April – a Cavan GAA football game between the Cavan Slashers and Belturbet Rory O'Moores is reported by an Anglo-Celt reporter as "...A disgrace, I must state that a more rowdy and disgraceful meeting I have never witnessed and the conduct of the party that came along with the Cavan club was simply what I could not wish to describe" and "The filthy expressions used by them towards the Rory O'Moores is simply not fit for publication".
• 30 April – the first Cavan GAA County Championship Final is played at Cavan as the defeat the 's.

Golf[]

• The Royal Portrush Golf Club is founded as The County Club at Portrush, County Antrim.
• The Cork Golf Club is founded at Cork.

Horse racing[]

• The Leopardstown Racecourse is established by Captain George Quin becoming the first modern fully enclosed race track.

Births[]

• 6 January – Séumas Robinson, member of Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Army (died 1961).
• 7 January – Eugene O'Callaghan, Bishop of Clogher 1943–1969 (died 1973).
• 8 January – Matthew Moore, actor (died 1960).
• 10 February – , journalist.

Desmond FitzGerald

• 13 February – Desmond FitzGerald, Sinn Féin MP, TD, Cabinet Minister, Seanad Éireann member and poet, born in London (died 1947).
• 4 March – Grace Gifford Plunkett, Sinn Féin member and politician (died 1955).
• 10 March – Barry Fitzgerald, Academy Award-winning actor (died 1961).
• 8 May – W. F. Marshall, Presbyterian minister and poet (died 1959).
• 18 May – Art O'Connor, Sinn Féin MP, member of 1st Dáil, Cabinet Minister, lawyer and judge (died 1950).
• 9 June – Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, Ulster Unionist Party MP, third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (died 1973).
• 1 July – Linda Kearns MacWhinney, nurse, Sinn Féin member and politician (died 1951).
• 23 July – Ivan Magill, anaesthesiologist (died 1986).
• 12 August – Joseph McGrath, Sinn Féin and later Cumann na nGaedheal TD, racehorse owner and breeder (died 1966).
• 1 October – William Cosgrove, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1915 at the Battle of Gallipoli, Turkey (died 1936).
• 16 October – Edmond Pery, 5th Earl of Limerick, peer and soldier (died 1967).
• 24 October – Francis de Groot, upstager of New South Wales Premier Jack Lang at the 1932 official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (died 1969).
• 1 September – Frederick Maurice Watson Harvey, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1917 at Guyencourt, France (died 1980).
• 25 September – Harold Jackson, cricketer (died 1979).
• 28 September – Seán Lester, diplomat and last Secretary General of the League of Nations (died 1959).
• 29 September – Michael J. Stack, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania (died 1960).
• 19 October – Con Colbert, nationalist and rebel, took part in Easter Rising (executed 1916).
• 8 November – Gerald Robert O'Sullivan, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1915 at Gallipoli, Turkey (died 1915).
• 19 November – Seán Moylan, member Irish Volunteers, Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil TD, Cabinet Minister and Seanad Éireann member (died 1957).
• 7 December – Joyce Cary, novelist and artist (died 1957).

Deaths[]

• 10 January – Philip Cross, army surgeon, hanged in Cork Jail for the murder of his wife.
• 12 May – John Joseph Lynch, Bishop of Toronto (born 1816).
• 15 October – Frank O'Meara, artist (born 1853).
• 10 November – Thomas Henry Fitzgerald, farmer and politician in Queensland, Australia (born 1824).
• 22 November – John McGovern, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 at Delhi, India (born 1825).
• 1 December – John Divane, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 at Delhi, India (born 1822).

References[]