Events from the year 1820 in Ireland.
Events
- 30 January â Irish-born Royal Navy captain Edward Bransfield in the Williams is the first person positively to identify Antarctica as a land mass.
- 12 February â the East Indian and Fanny set sail from Cork with settlers for the Cape Colony.
- 6 May â failure of Newport's Bank in Waterford.
- 25 May â failure of Roche's Bank and stoppage of Leslie's Bank in Cork.
- 3 June â the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne in Cork is largely destroyed by arson.
- 8 July â act for lighting the city and suburbs of Dublin with gas.
- 20 July â Saint Cronan's Boys' National School opens in Bray, County Wicklow, as the Bray Male School.
- December â Lough Allen Canal, giving through navigation between Carrick-on-Shannon and Lough Allen, opens.
- The Royal Dublin Society adopts its "Royal" prefix when the new king George IV of the United Kingdom becomes its patron.
- Suspension of construction of the Wellington Testimonial, Dublin, in Phoenix Park to the design of Robert Smirke.
- First steamship on the Irish Sea crossing from Dublin to Liverpool, the Waterloo, introduced by George Langtry of Belfast.
- Frederick Bourne begins to create the village of Ashbourne, County Meath.
- Publication of James Hardiman's The History of the Town and County of the Town of Galway, from the earliest period to the present time in Dublin.
- Denny Meats are founded.
- St. John's Church is built in Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare.
Arts and literature
Births
- 19 February â John Tuigg, third Roman Catholic Bishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (died 1889 in the United States).
- 31 May â Timothy Burns, Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin from 1851 to 1853 (died 1853).
- 3 June â Thomas William Moffett, scholar, educationalist and president of Queen's College Galway (died 1908).
- 4 June â John Kean, businessman and politician in Ontario (died 1892).
- 2 August â John Tyndall, physicist (died 1893).
- 6 October â James Travers, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 at Indore, India (died 1884).
- 22 November â Katherine Plunket, botanical artist and longest-lived Irish person ever (died 1932).
- 30 December â Mary Anne Sadlier, novelist (died 1903).
- ;Full date unknown
- :*Thomas Bellew, Galway landowner and politician (died 1863).
- :* John F. Kennedy's great-grandfather was born in the village of Dunganstown in County Wexford.
- :*Johnston Drummond, early settler of Western Australia, botanical and zoological collector (died 1845).
- :*Ambrose Madden, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1854 in the Crimea, at Little Inkerman (died 1863).
- :*Patrick Mylott, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 in India (died 1878).
- :*Henry Hamilton O'Hara "Mad O'hara", "The Mad Squire of Craigbilly" (died 1875).
- :*Kivas Tully, architect (died 1905).
Deaths
See also
References