# 1909 in Ireland

Events in 1909 in Ireland.

## Events

* 31 October – The Royal University of Ireland was dissolved.
* 14 December – Ernest Shackleton delivered a lecture entitled Nearest the South Pole in the large hall of the National University in Dublin.
* 31 December – Harry Ferguson became the first person to fly an aircraft in Ireland, in a monoplane he designed and built himself.
* The Mater Infirmorum Hospital in Belfast was officially recognised as a university teaching hospital.
* Fieldwork for the multidisciplinary Clare Island Survey commenced under the direction of Robert Lloyd Praeger.

## Arts and literature

* 1 April – Lennox Robinson's first play, The Cross Roads, was performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; he became the theatre manager later in the year.
* 22 July – Widowed Irish painter John Lavery married Irish American painter Hazel Martyn.
* 20 August – The tenor Enrico Caruso performed at the Theatre Royal in Dublin.
* 20 December – The first dedicated cinema in Ireland, the Volta Cinematograph, opened in Dublin under the management of writer James Joyce.
* Herbert Hughes' collection of folk songs, Irish Country Songs, was published, including "She Moved Through the Fair" with words largely composed by Padraic Colum.
* Ella Young's first work of Irish folklore, The Coming of Lugh, was published.

## Sport
### Association football
#### International

** 13 February – England 4–0 Ireland (in Bradford)
** 15 March – Scotland 5–0 Ireland (in Glasgow)
** 20 March – Ireland 2–3 Wales (in Belfast)

#### Irish League

    Winners: Linfield F.C.

#### Irish Cup

    Winners: Cliftonville F.C. 0–0 draw; replay result 2-1 Bohemian F.C.

## Births

* 9 January – Patrick Peyton, priest who promoted the Rosary (died 1992).
* 30 January – George Crothers, cricketer (died 1982 in Northern Ireland).
* 1 February – Timothy McAuliffe, Labour Party politician (died 1985).
* 8 March – Francis MacManus, novelist (died 1965).
* 3 April – Knox Cunningham, barrister, businessman, and Ulster Unionist politician (died 1976).
* 19 April – Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, cryptanalyst, chess player, and chess writer (died 1974).
* 24 April –
** Robert Farren (Roibeárd Ó Faracháin), poet (died 1984).
** David Beers Quinn, historian (died 2002).
* 30 April – F. E. McWilliam, sculptor (died 1992).
* 4 June – Robert Dudley Edwards, historian (died 1988).
* 7 July – Cecilia Thackaberry, Presentation Sisters nun, killed in Nigeria performing relief work (died 1969).
* 24 July – Geoffrey Bing, lawyer and Labour politician in UK (died 1977 in Northern Ireland).
* 31 July – Martin White, Kilkenny hurler (died 2011).
* 1 August – W. R. Rodgers, writer, broadcaster, teacher, and Presbyterian minister (died 1969).
* 4 October – Paddy Moore, association football player (died 1951).
* 7 October – Michael O'Neill, nationalist politician and Member of Parliament (MP) (died 1976).
* 20 October – James Patrick Scully, awarded George Cross for valour in 1941 in Liverpool in rescuing people from a bomb damaged building.
* 28 October – Francis Bacon, painter (died 1992).
* 4 November – Sir Basil Goulding, 3rd Baronet, cricketer, squash player, and art collector (died 1982).
* 29 November – James Auchmuty, historian (died 1981).

### Full date unknown

** Muriel Brandt, artist (died 1981 in Northern Ireland).
** Jack Stanley Gibson, surgeon and writer (died 2005).
** Gabriel Hayes, sculptor, designer of Irish coins (died 1978).
** W. R. Rodgers, poet and writer (died 1969 in Northern Ireland).

## Deaths

* 10 January – John Conness, United States Senator from California 1863–1869 (born 1821).
* 4 February – James Lynam Molloy, poet, songwriter, and composer (born 1837).
* 3 March – Bishop Richard Owens, Bishop of Clogher 1894–1909 (born 1840).
* 19 March – Charles Guilfoyle Doran, Clerk of Works at St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh (born 1835).
* 24 March – William Lundon, Irish Parliamentary Party MP (born 1839).
* 24 March – John Millington Synge, author and playwright (Hodgkin's disease).
* 4 April – Sir Theobald Burke, 13th Baronet (born 1833).
* 22 May – Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, 4th Baronet, Liberal Party MP (born 1839).
* 3 June – Charlotte Grace O'Brien, political and social activist, writer, and plant collector (born 1845).
* 15 July – George Tyrrell, expelled Jesuit priest and Modernist Catholic scholar (born 1861).
* 1 December – William Joseph Corbet, nationalist politician and MP (born 1824).