Ireland

Birth of Fanny Parnell, Land League agitator and sister of Charles Stewart Parnell

Eestablishment of a national gallery of paintings, sculpture and fine arts in Ireland

The statutory provision for the establishment of a national gallery of paintings, sculpture, and fine arts in Ireland was made in 1854, leading to the creation of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. This institution was founded to house and display a collection of art for the public and to promote the appreciation of fine arts in Ireland.

Charles Davis Lucas first recipient of the Victoria Cross

Charles Davis Lucas, born in Drumagole, County Armagh, performs a remarkable act of bravery at the age of 20 during the Crimean War. Serving as a mate in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Hecla, Lucas picks up a live Russian shell—its fuse still burning—that has landed on the deck of the ship, and throws it overboard, saving the vessel and its crew from certain destruction.

Harry Furniss, caricaturist, is born in Wexford

Harry Furniss (26 March 1854 – 14 January 1925) was a British illustrator. He established his career on the Illustrated London News before moving to Punch. He also illustrated Lewis Carroll’s novel Sylvie and Bruno.

William Smith O'Brien, leader of the 1848 rebellion, is pardoned

Assemblys College, Belfast, opens for the training of Presbyterian clergy

Union Theological College is the theological college for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and is situated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The college was founded in 1853 as the Assembly’s College.

Sir William Ridgeway, classical scholar, is born in Ballydermot, Co. Offaly

Sir William Ridgeway, FBA FRAI (6 August 1853 – 12 August 1926) was an Anglo-Irish classical scholar and the Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

The introduction of income tax in Ireland is proposed for the first time

Hall Caine, a Manx novelist is born.

Sir Hall Caine (May 14, 1853 - August 31, 1931) was a British novelist and playwright born Thomas Henry Hall Caine at Runcorn, Cheshire, England and educated in Liverpool. He was trained as an architectural draughtsman but became a journalist instead as well as a writer of novels. He lived with Dante Gabriel Rossetti as secretary and companion for the last year of Rossettis life.

The Ossianic Society is founded to preserve and publish manuscripts of the Fionn cycle

The Ossianic Society was an Irish literary society founded in Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day, 1853, taking its name from the poetic material associated with the ancient narrator Oisín.