1850 in Ireland

Events

• Ongoing – Great Famine subsides.
• 31 March – the paddle steamer, bound from Cork to London, sinks in the English Channel with the loss of all 250 on board.
• 19 November – the barque Edmond sinks off Kilkee with the loss of 98 of the 216 aboard.
• Improved navigation of River Shannon throughout from Killaloe to Lough Key is completed.
• The Encumbered Estates Commissioners sell off remaining Donegall estate properties in Belfast to the tenants.
• Crumlin Road Courthouse in Belfast is completed.
• Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum for Ireland opened in Dundrum, Dublin, the first secure hospital in Europe.

  Arts and literature

• Brian Mac Giolla Meidhre's poem Cúirt An Mheán Oíche is first published from the oral tradition in an edition by the scholar John O'Daly.
• Tara Brooch found near Laytown, County Meath.

  Sport

• 27 February – Abd El Kader wins the Aintree Grand National in England, having been trained at Dardistown Castle by his owner, Joe Osborne.

  Births

• 10 January – William Reid Clanny, physician and inventor of the Clanny safety lamp for miners.
• 6 August – Windham Quin, 2nd Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, peer.
• 13 August – Martin Archer Shee, painter.
• 18 August – Charles Arbuthnot, Tory politician and member of the Privy Council.
• 10 October – Jon Riley, deserter from United States Army, a founder of the San Patricios.
• 29 December – William Hamilton Maxwell, novelist.

  Deaths

• 25 April – William Melville, police officer and first chief of the British Secret Service.
• 9 June – Pierce Charles de Lacy O'Mahony, Nationalist politician, barrister and philanthropist.
• 24 June – Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British Field Marshal and statesman.
• 17 July – Edmond Holmes, educationalist, writer on religion and poet.
• 12 September – James Bernard, 4th Earl of Bandon, Deputy Lieutenant in Ireland.
• 8 October – Matthias McDonnell Bodkin, Nationalist politician, barrister and journalist.
• 22 December – Thomas O'Shaughnessy, lawyer and judge.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*Thomas Lough, Liberal politician in Britain, Lord Lieutenant of Cavan.
• :*Samuel Shumack, farmer and author in Australia.