• April – the narrow gauge Castlederg and Victoria Bridge Tramway opens in County Tyrone.^[1]
• 23 October – the Society of Jesus takes over University College Dublin.
• 30 October – two Clan na Gael dynamite bombs explode in the London Underground, injuring several people. Next day the British Home Secretary, William Vernon Harcourt, introduces the Explosives Bill.
• 1 November – Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast admits its first patients.^[2]

• George Moore's first novel, the realist A Modern Lover, is published.

Rugby union edit

• Ireland take part in the inaugural Home Nations Championship
• Ireland's first home championship game played at Ormeau Road in Belfast.

Soccer edit

• International

  24 February England 7–0 Ireland (in Liverpool)^[3]

  17 March Ireland 1–1 Wales (in Belfast)^[3]

• Irish Cup

  Winners: Cliftonville 5–0 Ulster

• 7 January – Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, British admiral of the Second World War and First Sea Lord (died 1963 in London).
• 14 January – Bulmer Hobson, nationalist, an early leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (died 1969).
• 15 January – Helena Molony, fights in the 1916 Easter Rising and first woman president of the Irish Trades Union Congress (died 1967).
• 24 January – Denis McCullough, Irish Volunteers, elected to the 4th Dáil Éireann (died 1968).
• 29 January – Billy McCracken, footballer and football manager (died 1979).
• 28 February – Seán Mac Diarmada, nationalist, rebel and Easter Rising leader (executed 1916).
• 1 May – Thomas J. Moore, actor (died 1955).
• 8 May – Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, born Mary Walker, actress and Republican activist (died 1958).
• 13 May – Jimmy Archer, Major League baseball player (died 1958 in the United States).
• 23 June – Eva McGown, Official Hostess of Fairbanks and Honorary Hostess of Alaska (died 1972 in the United States).
• 15 July – Denny Barry, Irish Republican (died on hunger strike 1923).
• 2 August – Sam Irving, footballer and football manager (died 1968).
• 2 September – Alexander Haslett, independent TD (died 1951).
• 12 December – Peadar Kearney, Irish Republican and songwriter, co-author of "The Soldier's Song" (died 1942).
• 28 November – Rory O'Connor, Irish republican activist captured at the fall of the Four Courts (executed 1922).
• 28 December – St. John Greer Ervine, author and dramatist (died 1971 in London).

  Full date unknown

  • Lorcán Ó Muireadais, priest and Irish language promoter (died 1941).
  • Louisa Watson Peat, writer and lecturer (died 1953 in the United States)

• 9 February – Henry John Stephen Smith, mathematician (died 1826).
• 26 May – Edward Sabine, astronomer, scientist, ornithologist and explorer (born 1788).
• 25 July – Frederick Edward Maning, writer and judge in New Zealand (born 1812).
• 22 October – Thomas Mayne Reid, novelist (born 1818).
• 24 November – William Fitzgerald, Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe (born 1814).
• 17 December – James Carey, Fenian and informer, executed in London (born 1845).

  Full date unknown

  • Robert Dwyer Joyce, music collector and writer (born 1830).

• 1883 in Scotland
• 1883 in Wales