1860 in Ireland

Events

• 25 February – £11,000 collected at church doors in Dublin to finance the Pope's defence against the Risorgimento in Italy; £80,000 collected nationwide.
• 28 August – Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Act 1860, intended to reform tenants' rights.
• September – Myles O'Reilly's "Battalion of St Patrick" assist in the unsuccessful defence of Spoleto against the Risorgimento.
• 3 November – The Catholic Ballaghaderreen Cathedral is consecrated and opened.
• 11 November – Kildare Street Club, Dublin, destroyed by fire.
• 21–23 November – Partry evictions, County Mayo: 68 families turned out of their houses by Thomas Plunket, Church of Ireland Bishop of Tuam.
• Construction begins on the Roman Catholic church that will become St Peter's Cathedral, Belfast.

  Arts and literature

• 27 March – the melodrama The Colleen Bawn, or The Brides of Garryowen, written by and starring Dion Boucicault, is first performed at Laura Keene's Theatre, New York.
• Dr. George Sigerson's The Poets and Poetry of Munster is published.
• Anthony Trollope's novel Castle Richmond, set during the Great Famine, is completed and published in England.

  Births

• 1 January – John Cassidy, sculptor and painter.
• 17 January – Douglas Hyde, member of the Seanad in 1922 and 1938; first President of Ireland and Gaelic scholar.
• 26 April – Gerald Carew, 5th Baron Carew.
• 1 June – Hugh Thomson, illustrator.
• 15 June – Robert Carew, 3rd Baron Carew.
• 25 June – John Danaher, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1881 near Pretoria, South Africa.
• 23 July – Thomas Preston, scientist.
• 8 December – Amanda McKittrick Ros, born Anna McKittrick, novelist and poet noted for her purple prose.
• 25 December – Patrick S. Dinneen, lexicographer and historian.

  Deaths

• 12 February – William Francis Patrick Napier, soldier and military historian.
• 17 March – Anna Brownell Jameson, writer.
• 23 October – Peter Boyle de Blaquière, politician in Canada and first chancellor of the University of Toronto.
• 24 November – George Croly, poet, novelist, historian and divine