1839 in Ireland

Events

• 6-7 January – Night of the Big Wind: a severe windstorm sweeps across Ireland killing hundreds and leaving thousands homeless.
• 22 June – The Earl of Belfast lays the foundation stone for the Palm House in Belfast Botanic Gardens.
• 12 August – the Ulster Railway is opened between Belfast and Lisburn.
• 5 December – Uniform Fourpenny Post introduced in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a major postal reform, whereby fourpence is levied for pre-paid letters up to half an ounce in weight instead of postage being calculated by distance and number of sheets of paper.

  Arts and literature

• Charles Lever's The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer is published in book form in Dublin.

  Births

• 6 January – Arthur Gore, 5th Earl of Arran, Anglo-Irish peer and diplomat.
• 16 March – John Butler Yeats, artist and father of William Butler Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats.
• 27 March – John Ballance, 14th Premier of New Zealand.
• 1 April – St. Clair Augustine Mulholland, American Civil War officer.
• 7 April – David Baird, United States Senator from New Jersey from 1918 to 1919.
• 27 April – Charles Frederick Houghton, soldier and politician in Canada.
• 10 May – Thomas Joseph Carr, second Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia.
• 11 July – William John Hennessy, artist.
• 5 September – Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, 4th Baronet, Liberal Party MP.
• 4 November – Thomas MacDonald Patterson, politician and newspaper publisher in the USA.
• 24 November – James Adams, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1879 at Killa Kazi, Afghanistan.
• 30 December – John Todhunter, poet and playwright.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*William Lundon, Irish Parliamentary Party MP.
• :*John Pentland Mahaffy, classicist.
• :*Thomas Murphy, recipient of the Victoria Cross for bravery at sea in saving life in a storm off the Andaman Islands in 1867.

  Deaths

• 18 November – Hans Blackwood, 3rd Baron Dufferin and Claneboye.
• Gideon Ouseley, Methodism's 'apostle to the Irish'.