1846 in Ireland

Events from the year 1846 in Ireland.

Events

 * Ongoing – Great Hunger: The first deaths from hunger take place early in the year. Phytophthora infestans almost totally destroys the summer potato crop and the Famine worsens considerably. By December a third of a million destitute people are employed on public works.
 * 13 March – Ballinlass incident: eviction of 300 tenants at the village of Ballinlass in County Galway.
 * 22 September – the Great Western Steamship Company's SS Great Britain, bound from Liverpool for New York, runs aground in Dundrum Bay (County Down). She lies here for almost a year, protected by temporary measures organised by her designer, I. K. Brunel.
 * Maziere Brady succeeds Sir Edward Sugden as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, an office which he will hold (with short intervals) until 1866.
 * HM Prison Crumlin Road in Belfast is opened with the arrival of the first inmates, who are forced to walk from Carrickfergus Prison in chains.
 * The first substantial English translation of the Annals of the Four Masters, made by Owen Connellan, is published.
 * The Anglo-Celt newspaper begins weekly publication in Cavan.
 * Historian Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh (Roderic O'Flaherty)'s Chorographical description of West or Iar Connacht (1684) is first published.

Births

 * 10 February – Lord Charles Beresford, British admiral (died 1919)
 * 13 February – John O'Connor Power, Irish Nationalist politician and Member of Parliament (died 1919).
 * 25 March – Michael Davitt, republican, nationalist agrarian agitator, social campaigner, labour leader and Irish National Land League founder (died 1906).
 * 27 June – Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader (died 1891).
 * 30 June – Frances Margaret Milne, author and librarian (died 1910 in the United States).
 * 22 July – Alfred Perceval Graves, writer (died 1931).
 * 13 August – Otto Jaffe, twice elected as Irish Unionist Party Lord Mayor of Belfast (died 1929).
 * 10 September – John F. Finerty, U.S. Representative from Illinois (died 1908).
 * 18 September – Standish James O'Grady, author, journalist and historian (died 1928).
 * 23 August – Sir Henry Bellingham, 4th Baronet, politician and barrister (died 1921).
 * 9 October – Frank Hugh O'Donnell, writer and nationalist politician (died 1916).
 * 18 November – Samuel Cleland Davidson, inventor and engineer (died 1921)

Deaths

 * 3 April – Zozimus (Michael J. Moran), comic poet (b. c. 1794)
 * 12 October – Lawrence Kavenagh, bushranger (b. c. 1805)
 * exact date unknown – George Darley, poet, novelist and critic (born 1795).