Events from the year 1896 in Ireland.

• February – the Broighter Gold hoard of prehistoric objects is discovered near Limavady by Tom Nicholl while ploughing.
• 16 May – the first electric tram runs on the Dublin tramways system.
• May – James Connolly returns from Edinburgh to Ireland as paid organiser for the Dublin Socialist Club. He founds the Irish Republican Socialist Party.
• 28 March – Tom Gallaher incorporates the Gallaher tobacco business and opens the world's largest tobacco factory in Belfast.
• John Dillon assumes the leadership of the anti-Parnellite wing of the Home Rule Party.
• An extension is made to Arthur Balfour's Land Act. 1,500 bankrupt estates are made available for sale to tenants.
• Ireland's first motor vehicle laws are introduced.
• Restoration of the Church of Ireland's Kildare Cathedral is completed.

• 20 April – first cinema show in Ireland, at Dan Lowry's Star of Erin Variety Theatre in Dublin.^[1]
• The lyrics of The Mountains of Mourne are written by Percy French with Dr. W. Houston Collision.^[2]
• Charles Villiers Stanford's comic opera Shamus O'Brien is first performed.

• 15 February – Arthur Shields, actor (died 1970).
• March – Martin Joseph Sheehan, soldier and Royal Air Service Observer in World War I, killed in action (died 1918).
• 4 April – Sir Osmond Esmonde, 12th Baronet, diplomat and politician (died 1936).
• 24 April – F. R. Higgins, poet and theatre director (died 1941).
• 9 May – Austin Clarke, poet, playwright and writer (died 1974).
• 22 May – Cyril Fagan, astrologer (died 1970).
• 28 August – Liam O'Flaherty, novelist and short story writer (died 1984).
• 10 November – Sophie Catherine Theresa Mary Peirce-Evans, later Mary, Lady Heath, aviator, athlete and writer (died 1939).
• 25 December – Sister Philippa Brazill, nurse in Australia (died 1988).

  Full date unknown

  • Monk Gibbon, poet and author (died 1987).
  • Fiona Plunkett, republican (died 1977).

• 10 January – Denis Dempsey, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross (born 1826).
• 3 February – Jane Wilde, poet ("Esperanza"; born 1821).
• 4 March – Peter Richard Kenrick, first Catholic archbishop west of the Mississippi River (born 1806).
• 4 May – Timothy Anglin, politician in Canada and Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada (born 1822).
• 18 May – Patrick Buckley, soldier, lawyer, statesman, and judge in New Zealand (born 1841).
• 8 August – William Pery, 3rd Earl of Limerick, peer (born 1840).
• 10 August – Jeremiah O'Sullivan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Mobile (born 1842).
• 15 August – Patrick Duggan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Clonfert (born 1813).
• 22 September – Edward Selby Smyth, British General, commanded Militia of Canada from 1874 to 1880 (born 1819).
• 1 November – Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey, boxer (born 1862).
• 31 December – Leland Hone, cricketer (born 1853).

  Full date unknown

  • Canon James Goodman, Irish music collector (born 1828).

• 1896 in Scotland
• 1896 in Wales