1850 in Ireland

Events from the year 1850 in Ireland.

Events

 * Ongoing – Great Famine subsides.
 * 31 March – the paddle steamer RMS Royal Adelaide (1838), bound from Cork to London, sinks in the English Channel with the loss of all 250 on board.
 * October – Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum for Ireland opened in Dundrum, Dublin, the first secure hospital in Europe.
 * 19 November – the barque Edmond sinks off Kilkee with the loss of 98 of the 216 aboard.
 * Improved navigation of River Shannon throughout from Killaloe to Lough Key is completed.
 * The Encumbered Estates Commissioners sell off remaining Donegall estate properties in Belfast to the tenants.
 * Crumlin Road Courthouse in Belfast is completed.

Arts and literature

 * Brian Mac Giolla Meidhre's poem Cúirt An Mheán Oíche is first published from the oral tradition in an edition by the scholar John O'Daly.
 * Tara Brooch (c.700 AD) found near Laytown, County Meath.

Sport

 * 27 February – Abd El Kader wins the Aintree Grand National in England, having been trained at Dardistown Castle by his owner, Joe Osborne.

Deaths

 * 10 January – William Reid Clanny, physician and inventor of the Clanny safety lamp for miners (born 1770).
 * 6 August – Windham Quin, 2nd Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, peer (born 1782).
 * 13 August – Martin Archer Shee, painter (born 1769).
 * 18 August – Charles Arbuthnot, Tory politician and member of the Privy Council (born 1767).
 * 10 October – Jon Riley, deserter from United States Army, a founder of the San Patricios (born 1805).
 * 29 December – William Hamilton Maxwell, novelist (born 1792).

Births

 * 25 April – William Melville, police officer and first chief of the British Secret Service (died 1918).
 * 9 June – Pierce Charles de Lacy O'Mahony, Nationalist politician, barrister and philanthropist (died 1930).
 * 24 June – Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British Field Marshal and statesman (drowned 1916).
 * 17 July – Edmond Holmes, educationalist, writer on religion and poet (died 1936).
 * 12 September – James Bernard, 4th Earl of Bandon, Deputy Lieutenant in Ireland (died 1924).
 * 8 October – Matthias McDonnell Bodkin, Nationalist politician, barrister and journalist (died 1933).
 * 22 December – Thomas O'Shaughnessy, lawyer and judge (died 1933).
 * Full date unknown
 * Thomas Lough, Liberal politician in Britain, Lord Lieutenant of Cavan (died 1922).
 * Samuel Shumack, farmer and author in Australia (died 1940 in Australia).