1952 in Ireland

Incumbents

• President: Seán T. O'Kelly
• Taoiseach: Éamon de Valera

  Events

• 9 January – Peig Sayers travels to Dublin for the first time in her 81 years.
• 10 January – an Aer Lingus Douglas DC-3 aircraft on a London-Dublin flight crashes in Wales due to vertical draft in the mountains of Snowdonia, killing twenty passengers and the three crew. It is the airline's first fatal crash in its fifteen-year history.
• 30 April – the Adoption Bill makes provision for the adoption of orphans and children aged between six months and seven years born outside wedlock.
• 11 May – in Washington, the House Foreign affairs Committee explains that Ireland's exclusion from Marshall Aid is due to its wartime neutrality.
• 30 May – the Minister for Education, Seán Moylan, announces longer summer holidays for national school children.
• 24 November – the Minister for Defence, Oscar Traynor, presents framed copies of the Proclamation to three printers who had been involved in the production of the original work.
• 29 December – Éamon de Valera arrives back in Dublin after spending four months at an eye clinic in Utrecht in the Netherlands.

  Arts and literature

• 12 July – première of the romantic comedy-drama film The Quiet Man, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, set in 1930s Ireland and with much location filming around Cong, County Mayo.
• 17 October – Samuel Beckett's play Waiting For Godot is published in French as En attendant Godot by Les Éditions de Minuit in Paris.
• The novelist Elizabeth Bowen settles in her ancestral home, Bowen's Court at Farahy, near Kildorrery, County Cork.
• Austin Clarke publishes his third and last novel The Sun Dances at Easter: a romance; like the first two, it is prohibited in Ireland by the Censorship of Publications Board.
• Louis le Brocquy's 1951 painting A Family sparks controversy when a group of art patrons offer to present it to the Dublin Municipal Gallery and it is rejected by the Art Advisory Committee on the grounds of incompetence.
• Daniel O'Neill paints Birth.
• Seán Ó Ríordáin publishes his first book of poetry Eireaball Spideoige.

  Sport

Football

Golf

• Irish Open – no tournament held.

  Births

• 8 January – Peter Sheridan, playwright, screenwriter, director and author.
• 30 January – Anne Doyle, newsreader.
• 2 February – Brian Murphy, Cork Gaelic footballer and hurler.
• 10 February – Martin Ferris, Provisional IRA member, Sinn Féin TD for Kerry North.
• 25 February – Seánie O'Leary, Cork hurler.
• 3 March – Dermot Morgan, actor and comedian.
• 18 March – Pat Eddery, flat racing jockey.
• 26 March – Martin O'Doherty, Cork hurler.
• 29 March – John Gilligan, drug smuggler implicated in the murder of Veronica Guerin.
• 14 April – Mickey O'Sullivan, Kerry Gaelic footballer, Limerick manager.
• 28 April – Gerald Barry, composer.
• 2 May – John Ellis, Fianna Fáil TD, Senator.
• 10 May – Ger Canning, Gaelic Athletic Association hurling and football commentator.
• 12 May – Pat Hooper, long-distance runner.
• 14 May – Tim Crowley, Cork hurler.
• 27 June – Ger Power, Kerry Gaelic footballer.
• June – Tony Killeen, Fianna Fáil TD for Clare, Minister of State.
• July – Anne Anderson, 17th Ambassador of Ireland to the United States, first woman to hold the post.
• 11 July – Tom Kitt, Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin South, Government Chief Whip.
• 4 August – Moya Brennan, singer.
• 5 August – Louis Walsh, manager in the music industry, judge on The X Factor.
• 7 August – Eamonn Darcy, golfer.
• 9 August – Dinny Allen, Cork Gaelic footballer.
• 25 August – Martin Duffy, filmmaker and writer.
• 11 September – Jimmy Deenihan, Fine Gael TD for Kerry North.
• 27 September – Liam Aylward, Fianna Fáil TD, MEP representing East.
• 6 October – Matthew Sweeney, poet.
• 7 October – Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, folk and traditional musician.
• 22 October – Mick Fairclough, soccer player.
• 1 November – Willie O'Dea, barrister-at-law, lecturer, Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála representing Limerick East, Cabinet Minister.
• 21 November – Eamonn Coghlan, four-time Olympian and world championship winning runner.
• 28 November – Pat Cox, Progressive Democrats TD, MEP representing Munster, 5th President of the directly elected European Parliament and television presenter.
• 14 December – Noel Synnott, soccer player and manager.
• ;Full date unknown

  Deaths

• 6 February – George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
• 18 February – Ernest Alton, university professor, represented Dublin University in Dáil from 1921 to 1927, represented Dublin University in Seanad from 1938 to 1943.
• 27 February – Helena Concannon, Fianna Fáil politician and historian.
• 21 March – James Perry Goodbody, nominated to the 1922 Seanad and the 1925 Seanad by the President of the Executive Council.
• 9 May – P. J. Ruttledge, Sinn Féin, then Fianna Fáil, TD and Cabinet Minister.
• 23 October – Windham Wyndham-Quin, 5th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, peer and politician.
• 2 November – Maire O'Neill, actress.
• 22 November – John Joe O'Reilly, Cavan Gaelic footballer.