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Centuries:	17th 18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s
See also:	1852 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1852 List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1852 in Ireland.

• 5 January – the troopship HMS Birkenhead boards British Army recruits at Queenstown. It has insufficient lifeboats.
• 26 February – the Birkenhead founders off the coast of South Africa. The soldiers stand to attention while women and children are placed in the lifeboats.
• 10 June
  • The 18-arch Craigmore Viaduct near Newry on the Dublin-Belfast railway line is opened (construction began in 1849).^[1]
  • The Irish Industrial Exhibition is opened in Cork.^[2]
• 1 October – Patent Law Amendment Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, merging the English, Scottish and Irish patent systems.
• Eglington Pauper Lunatic Asylum opened in Cork.
• End of the Great Famine.^[3] In the period it has lasted since 1845, one million people have emigrated from Ireland. The Irish now make up a quarter of the population of Liverpool, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore; and a half of Toronto.
• Tenant farmer Michael O'Regan emigrates from County Tipperary to London. He will become paternal great-grandfather to Ronald Reagan, President of the United States.

Full date unknown

• Samuel Kelly established his coal merchant's business as Samuel Kelly Coal Merchant on the Coal Quay, Belfast.^[4]

• Edmund Falconer produces his first collection of poems Man’s Mission: A Pilgrimage to Glory’s Goal^[5] whilst working as a jobbing actor.

• Curragh golf course is laid out, the first in Ireland.^[6]
• Leinster Cricket Club is founded in Rathgar.^[7]

• 25 January – Nevill Coghill, posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry at the Battle of Isandhlwana, South Africa (died 1879).
• 28 January – Louis Brennan, inventor (died 1932).
• 2 February – Lawrence E. McGann, Democrat U.S. Representative from Illinois (died 1928).
• 24 February – George Moore, novelist, poet, art critic and dramatist (died 1933).
• 29 February – Frank Gavan Duffy, fourth Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia (died 1936).
• 15 March – Augusta, Lady Gregory, dramatist and folklorist (died 1932).
• 17 March – Patrick Augustine Sheehan, priest, author and political activist (died 1913).
• 27 March – Jim Connell, political activist, writer of The Red Flag (died 1929).
• 9 April (bapt.) – Laurence Ginnell, nationalist, lawyer and politician, member of 1st Dáil (died 1923).
• 28 July – Barton McGuckin, tenor singer (died 1913).
• 30 September – Charles Villiers Stanford, composer (died 1924).
• 2 October – William O'Brien, nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher and author (died 1928).

• 25 February – Thomas Moore, poet, singer, songwriter and entertainer (born 1779).
• 25 April – Arthur O'Connor, United Irishman and later general in Napoleon's army (born 1763).
• 8 May – Charles Rowan, joint first Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, head of the London Metropolitan Police (b. c1782).
• 14 September – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, soldier and statesman (born 1769).

  Full date unknown

  • Edward Bransfield, master in the Royal Navy (born 1785).
  • William Thompson, naturalist (born 1805).
  • Elliot Warburton, travel writer and novelist (born 1810).

• 1852 in Scotland
• 1852 in Wales