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Events from the year 1888 in Ireland.

Events

  • January – the Chaine Memorial at Larne is completed.
  • March – the Pan-Celtic Society is founded by W. B. Yeats.
  • April – Pope Leo XIII issues a decree denouncing the "Plan of Campaign" as the Holy Office issues a rescript to the Bishops of the Catholic Church in Ireland to boycott the Campaign. This is ignored by many.
  • 4 June&ndash;27 October – Irish Exhibition at Olympia (London).
  • 20 August – the Christian Brothers College is founded in Cork.
  • September
  • James Joyce enters the Clongowes Wood College as the school's youngest student.
  • (approx. date) James Connolly deserts from his British Army regiment in Dublin and moves to Dundee.
  • Irish members of the British House of Commons attempt to introduce an Irish Local Government Bill; however the Bill is opposed by Chief Secretary Arthur Balfour.
  • Belfast is awarded city status by Queen Victoria.
  • The Belfast Central Library is founded.
  • A large flock of 110 Pallas's sandgrouse, a rare species of birds in Ireland, is recorded, one of the last known migrations witnessed in Ireland.
  • W. B. Yeats joins the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society.
  • James Daly sells the Connaught Telegraph to employee T. H. Gillespie.
  • Thomas Lindsay Buick becomes Secretary of the Gladstone branch of the Irish National League.
  • Reverend Henry Lett publishes a research paper on several unknown forms of fungi found in Ulster; however this document, as well as other research by Lett, is later lost.
  • Letitia Alice Walkington became the first woman in the United Kingdom to receive a degree of Bachelor of Laws, from the Royal University of Ireland at Queen's College, Belfast.

Arts and literature

  • 10 May – J. M. Synge arrives in the Aran Islands for his first visit.
  • William Allingham publishes Laurence Bloomfield or rich and poor in Ireland.
  • J. E. Gore publishes A revised catalogue of variable stars.
  • William Henry Hulbert publishes Ireland Under Coercion.
  • John Kells Ingram publishes A history of political economy and Essays in political economy.
  • T. Dumbar Ingram publishes Two Chapters of Irish History.
  • MacGregor Mathers publishes Qabbalah Unveiled.
  • Kuno Meyer publishes The Wooing of Emer.
  • George Moore publishes Spring Days.
  • 'Esperanza' (Jane, Lady Wilde) publishes Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland, with sketches of the Irish past.
  • Oscar Wilde publishes The Happy Prince.
  • W. B. Yeats publishes Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry and writes Down by the Salley Gardens.
  • Fossett's Circus begins touring Ireland nationally. It has continued without a break since then making it one of the oldest continuously touring circuses in the world.

Sport

Cricket

  • Several Irish Cricket Teams travel for their second tour of Canada and the United States.

Football

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  • ;International
  • :3 March Wales 11–0 Ireland (in Wrexham)
  • :24 March Ireland 2–10 Scotland (in Belfast)