Irish novelist Oliver Goldsmith publishes The Vicar of Wakefield, with a hero who has much to complain about but keeps calm

Wolfe Tone is one of the founders in Belfast of the Society of United Irishmen

A secret Protestant group, the Orange Society, is formed in Co. Armagh to resist Irish nationalism

Irish nationalist Wolfe Tone sails from France to invade Ireland with a force of 14,000 French soldiers

Irish nationalist Wolfe Tone, convicted of treason for his failed invasion, cuts his throat to cheat the British gallows

The Act of Union comes into effect, linking Ireland with Britain to form the United Kingdom

The uprising by Irish nationalist Robert Emmet ends in disaster when he marches on Dublin with only about 100 men

Robert Peel, chief secretary for Ireland, introduces a police force soon known as the 'Peelers'

Daniel O'Connell organizes Catholic Associations throughout Ireland, funded by the members' penny subscriptions

Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell wins a sensational by-election victory to join the Westminster parliament

Hector Berlioz marries an Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, with whom he has been obsessed since seeing her play Ophelia and Juliet in 1827

Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell pioneers mass political demonstrations, which become known as 'monster meetings'

Daniel O'Connell is convicted of seditious conspiracy and is sentenced to prison

Daniel O'Connell is acquitted on appeal and released from prison

A blight destroys the potato crop in Ireland and causes what becomes known as the Great Famine

The Irish, fleeing from the potato famine at home, become the main group of immigrants to the USA

An Irish branch of the US Fenians is established as the Irish Republican Brotherhood

Isaac Butt, an Irish MP at Westminster, founds the Home Rule association

Charles Stewart Parnell takes his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster and immediately adds zest to the campaign for Home Rule

The ancient Irish game of hurling is formalized by the newly founded Irish Hurling Union

Irish chief secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and a colleague are assassinated in Phoenix Park in Dublin

Gladstone's bill promising Home Rule for Ireland splits the Liberal party in Britain's House of Commons

Those in Britain's Liberal party opposing Home Rule for Ireland become a separate group under the name of Unionists

23-year-old Irish author William Butler Yeats publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin

Charles Steward Parnell is cited as co-respondent in a divorce case brought against Kitty O'Shea