Events from the year 1888 in Ireland.

• 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–27 October – Irish Exhibition at Olympia (London).^[1]
• 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.

• 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.^[2]

• 6 January – Séumas Robinson, member of Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Army (died 1961).
• 7 January – Eugene O'Callaghan, Bishop of Clogher 1943–1969 (died 1973).
• 8 January – Matthew Moore, actor (died 1960).
• 10 February – Michael Joseph MacManus, journalist.

• 13 February – Desmond FitzGerald, Sinn Féin MP, TD, Cabinet Minister, Seanad Éireann member and poet, born in London (died 1947).
• 4 March – Grace Gifford Plunkett, Sinn Féin member and politician (died 1955).
• 10 March – Barry Fitzgerald, Academy Award-winning actor (died 1961).
• 8 May – W. F. Marshall, Presbyterian minister and poet (died 1959).
• 18 May – Art O'Connor, Sinn Féin MP, member of 1st Dáil, Cabinet Minister, lawyer and judge (died 1950).
• 9 June – Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough, Ulster Unionist Party MP, third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (died 1973).
• 1 July – Linda Kearns MacWhinney, nurse, Sinn Féin member and politician (died 1951).
• 23 July – Ivan Magill, anaesthesiologist (died 1986).
• 12 August – Joseph McGrath, Sinn Féin and later Cumann na nGaedheal TD, racehorse owner and breeder (died 1966).
• 1 October – William Cosgrove, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1915 at the Battle of Gallipoli, Turkey (died 1936).
• 16 October – Edmond Pery, 5th Earl of Limerick, peer and soldier (died 1967).
• 24 October – Francis de Groot, upstager of New South Wales Premier Jack Lang at the 1932 official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (died 1969).
• 1 September – Frederick Maurice Watson Harvey, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1917 at Guyencourt, France (died 1980).
• 25 September – Harold Jackson, cricketer (died 1979).
• 28 September – Seán Lester, diplomat and last Secretary General of the League of Nations (died 1959).
• 29 September – Michael J. Stack, U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania (died 1960).
• 19 October – Con Colbert, nationalist and rebel, took part in Easter Rising (executed 1916).
• 8 November – Gerald Robert O'Sullivan, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1915 at Gallipoli, Turkey (died 1915).
• 19 November – Seán Moylan, member Irish Volunteers, Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil TD, Cabinet Minister and Seanad Éireann member (died 1957).
• 7 December – Joyce Cary, novelist and artist (died 1957).

• 10 January – Philip Cross, army surgeon, hanged in Cork Jail for the murder of his first wife (born 1825).
• 12 May – John Joseph Lynch, Bishop of Toronto (born 1816).
• 15 October – Frank O'Meara, artist (born 1853).
• 10 November – Thomas Henry Fitzgerald, farmer and politician in Queensland, Australia (born 1824).
• 22 November – John McGovern, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 at Delhi, India (born 1825).
• 1 December – John Divane, soldier, recipient of the Victoria Cross for gallantry in 1857 at Delhi, India (born 1822).

• 1888 in Scotland
• 1888 in Wales