1856 in Ireland

Centuries:	17th; 18th; 19th; 20th; 21st;
Decades:	1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s;
See also:	1856 in the United Kingdom; Other events of 1856 ; List of years in Ireland

Events from the year 1856 in Ireland.

Events

1 January – M. H. Gill, printer to Dublin University, purchases the publishing and bookselling business of James McGlashan, renaming it McGlashan & Gill, the predecessor of Gill & Macmillan.^[1]
29 September – the neoclassical Roman Catholic St Mel's cathedral, Longford, opens for worship.^[2]
22 October
- Coláiste Mhuire in Mullingar, County Westmeath opens its doors to students.
- Grand National Banquet for soldiers returned from the Crimean War in a warehouse in Custom House docks, Dublin.

14 February – Frank Harris, author, editor, journalist and publisher (died 1931).
20 March – John Lavery, artist (died 1941).
26 March – William Massey, Prime Minister of New Zealand (died 1925 in New Zealand).
2 May – Matt Talbot, manual labourer and ascetic (died 1925).
26 July – George Bernard Shaw, playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) (died 1950).
18 August – Walter Richard Pollock Hamilton, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1879 at Futtehabad, Afghanistan (died 1879).
17 November – Thomas Taggart, politician in the United States (died 1929).
28 November – Patrick O'Donnell, Cardinal, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (died 1927).
21 December
- Catherine Coll, mother of Éamon de Valera (died 1932)
- Sidney Royse Lysaght, writer (died 1941)
- Tomás Ó Criomhthain, writer and fisherman (died 1937).

27 January – John Lalor, journalist and author (born 1814).
4 February – William Hare, 2nd Earl of Listowel, peer and MP (born 1801).
18 March – Henry Pottinger, soldier and colonial administrator, first Governor of Hong Kong (born 1789).
31 May – Yankee Sullivan, bare knuckle fighter and boxer (born 1811).
2 June – Robert Carew, 1st Baron Carew, politician (born 1787).
8 December – Father Theobald Mathew, temperance reformer (born 1790).