1852 in Ireland

Events

• 5 January – the troopship HMS Birkenhead boards British Army recruits at Queenstown. It has insufficient lifeboats.
• 26 February – the Birkenhead founders off the coast of South Africa. The soldiers stand to attention while women and children are placed in the lifeboats.
• 10 June
• *The 18-arch Craigmore Viaduct near Newry on the Dublin-Belfast railway line is opened.
• *The Irish Industrial Exhibition is opened in Cork.
• 1 October – Patent Law Amendment Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, merging the English, Scottish and Irish patent systems.
• Eglington Pauper Lunatic Asylum opened in Cork.
• End of the Great Famine. In the period it has lasted since 1845, one million people have emigrated from Ireland. The Irish now make up a quarter of the population of Liverpool, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore; and a half of Toronto.
• Tenant farmer Michael O'Regan emigrates from County Tipperary to London. He will become paternal great-grandfather to Ronald Reagan, President of the United States.

  Arts and literature

• Edmund Falconer produces his first collection of poems Man’s Mission: A Pilgrimage to Glory’s Goal whilst working as a jobbing actor.

  Sport

• Curragh golf course is laid out, the first in Ireland.
• Leinster Cricket Club is founded in Rathgar.

  Births

• 25 January – Nevill Coghill, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the Battle of Isandhlwana, South Africa.
• 28 January – Louis Brennan, inventor.
• 2 February – Lawrence E. McGann, Democrat U.S. Representative from Illinois.
• 24 February – George Moore, novelist, poet, art critic and dramatist.
• 29 February – Frank Gavan Duffy, fourth Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.
• 15 March – Augusta, Lady Gregory, dramatist and folklorist.
• 17 March – Patrick Augustine Sheehan, priest, author and political activist.
• 27 March – Jim Connell, political activist, writer of The Red Flag.
• 9 April – Laurence Ginnell, nationalist, lawyer and politician, member of 1st Dáil.
• 28 July – Barton McGuckin, tenor singer.
• 30 September – Charles Villiers Stanford, composer.
• 2 October – William O'Brien, nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher and author.

  Deaths

• 25 February – Thomas Moore, poet, singer, songwriter and entertainer.
• 25 April – Arthur O'Connor, United Irishman and later general in Napoleon's army.
• 8 May – Charles Rowan, joint first Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, head of the London Metropolitan Police.
• 14 September – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, soldier and statesman.
• ;Full date unknown
• :*Edward Bransfield, master in the Royal Navy.
• :*William Thompson, naturalist.
• :*Elliot Warburton, travel writer and novelist.