Events

• James Connolly founds the Irish Republican Socialist Party.
• John Dillon assumes the leadership of the anti-Parnellite wing of the Home Rule Party.
• An extension is made to Arthur Balfour's Land Act. 1,500 bankrupt estates are made available for sale to tenants.
• Ireland's first motor vehicle laws are introduced.
• The first electric tram runs in the streets of Dublin.
• The Limavady hoard of prehistoric gold objects is discovered by Tom Nicholl while ploughing.
• Ireland's first cinema shows are held at Dan Lowry's Music Hall in Dublin.
• Tom Gallaher incorporates the Gallaher tobacco business (28 March) and opens the world's largest tobacco factory in Belfast.

Arts and literature

Sport

Cricket

• International

February: Tim O'Brien becomes the first Irish captain of the England cricket team in a match won against South Africa at Port Elizabeth^[1]

Football

• International

29 February Wales 6 - 1 Ireland (in Wrexham)^[2]

7 March Ireland 0 - 2 England (in Belfast)^[2]

28 March Ireland 3 - 3 Scotland (in Belfast)^[2]

• Irish League

Winners: Distillery

• Irish Cup

Winners: Distillery 3 - 1 Glentoran

Tennis

• John Pius Boland wins gold medals for tennis at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Births

• 15 February - Arthur Shields, actor (d.1970).
• March - Martin Joseph Sheehan, soldier and Royal Air Service Observer in World War I, killed in action (d.1918).
• 4 April - Sir Osmond Esmonde, 12th Baronet, diplomat and politician (d.1936).
• 24 April - F. R. Higgins, poet and theatre director (d.1941).
• 9 May - Austin Clarke, poet, playwright and writer (d.1974).
• 22 May - Cyril Fagan, astrologer (d.1970).
• 28 August - Liam O'Flaherty, novelist and short story writer (d.1984).
• 17 November - Sophie Catherine Theresa Mary Peirce-Evans, later Mary, Lady Heath, aviator, athlete and writer (d.1939).
• 25 December - Sister Philippa Brazill, nurse in Australia (d.1988).

Full date unknown

• Monk Gibbon, poet and author (d.1987).
• Mark Killilea, Snr, Fianna F il TD, member of the Seanad (d.1970).

Deaths

• 10 January - Denis Dempsey, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (b.1826).
• 4 March - Peter Richard Kenrick, first Catholic archbishop west of the Mississippi River (b.1806).
• 4 May - Timothy Anglin, politician in Canada and Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons (b.1822).
• 18 May - Patrick Alphonsus Buckley, soldier, lawyer, statesman, and judge in New Zealand (b.1841).
• 8 August - William Pery, 3rd Earl of Limerick, peer (b.1840).
• 10 August - Jeremiah O'Sullivan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Mobile (b.1842).
• 15 August - Patrick Duggan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Clonfert (b.1813).
• 22 September - Edward Selby Smyth, British General, commanded Militia of Canada from 1874 to 1880 (b.1819).
• 1 November - Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey, boxer (b.1862).
• 31 December - Leland Hone, cricketer (b.1853).

Full date unknown

• Canon James Goodman, Irish music collector (b.1828).

References