1881 in Ireland

Events

• 16 January – the lowest temperature ever recorded in Ireland, −19.1C at Markree, County Sligo.
• 3 February – arrest of Michael Davitt.
• William Ewart Gladstone's second Land Act secures the three "f"s, and gives the courts the authority to reconsider judicial rents every three years and to adjust them in line with shifts in agricultural prices.
• June – the submarine "Fenian Ram", designed by Irish-born John Philip Holland and financed by the American Fenian Brotherhood, is first submersion-tested in New York City.
• Coercion Acts.
• October – arrest of Charles Stewart Parnell and other leaders.
• 18 October – No Rent Manifesto.
• 19 October – Irish National Land League proclaimed as an unlawful association.
• Kilmacud Monastery established by Carmelite nuns.
• Approximate date – St John Ambulance Ireland establishes its first centre, in Dublin.

  Arts and literature

Sport

Football

• ;Irish Cup
• :Winners: Moyola Park 1–0 Cliftonville

  Golf

• 9 November – Royal Belfast Golf Club founded, the oldest in Ireland.

  Births

• 23 January – William X. O'Brien, politician and trade unionist.
• 10 February – Ken McArthur, winner of the marathon race at the 1912 Summer Olympics for South Africa.
• 15 February – Piaras Béaslaí, member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, member of Dáil Éireann, author, playwright, biographer and translator.
• 14 March – Robert Barton, Sinn Féin MP, Cabinet Minister and signatory of Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921.
• 21 March – Seán O'Hegarty, Irish Republican Army member during the Irish War of Independence.
• 25 March – Moya Llewelyn Davies, born Mary Elizabeth O'Connor, Republican activist and Gaelic scholar.
• 28 March – Martin Sheridan, Olympic gold medallist for the United States.
• 10 April – William John Leech, painter.
• 24 April – John Joe O'Reilly, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fine Gael TD.
• 20 May – Robert Gregory, cricketer, artist and airman.
• 26 July – James Cecil Parke, international rugby player, tennis player, golfer and Olympic medallist.
• 21 September – Éamonn Ceannt, nationalist, rebel and Easter Rising leader.
• 13 November
• *Con Collins, Sinn Féin MP.
• *John Tudor Gwynn, cricketer.
• 8 December – Padraic Colum, poet, novelist and dramatist.
• Full date unknown
• *William Conor, artist.
• *Seumas O'Kelly, journalist and author

  Deaths

• 30 January – Anna Maria Hall, novelist.
• January – Alfred Elmore, painter.
• 5 February – Richard Graves MacDonnell, lawyer, judge and colonial governor.
• 1 August – Nathaniel Thomas Hone, cricketer.
• 9 September – Robert Carew, 2nd Baron Carew, politician.
• 10 October – Richard Turner, iron-founder.
• 5 November – Robert Mallet, geologist, civil engineer and inventor.
• 7 November – John MacHale, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, Irish Nationalist and writer.