1740 in Ireland

Events from the year 1740 in Ireland.

← 1739 1738 1737 1736 1735 1740 in Ireland → 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745
Centuries:	16th 17th 18th 19th 20th
Decades:	1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s
See also:	Other events of 1740 List of years in Ireland

Incumbent

• Monarch: George II

Events

• January–February: the 'Great Frost' continues: unusually harsh winter^[1] followed by a Spring drought.
• April – citizens of Drogheda prevent food being exported from their town to Scotland.^[2]
• 31 May – 2 June: bread riots in Dublin.^[3]
• June–December – exceptionally cold weather, leading to the Great Irish Famine (1740–1741).^[3]
• First steam engine installed in Ireland, for pumping at Doonane Colliery, Shrule.^[3]
• A Dublin–Belfast stage coach service runs.^[4]
• Conolly's Folly in the grounds of Castletown House, County Kildare, commissioned by Katherine Conolly from architect Richard Cassels, is erected to provide employment for hundreds of the poor of Celbridge during the Famine.
• Susanna Drury shows her gouache drawings of the Giant's Causeway at the Dublin Society's first exhibition, bringing the site to wider attention.
• The original Ballymena Castle burns down.

Births

James Napper Tandy

• 7 April – Armar Lowry-Corry, 1st Earl Belmore, politician and High Sheriff (d. 1802)
• 25 September – Hercules Mulligan, tailor and spy during the American Revolution (d. 1825 in New York)
• 22 October – Philip Francis, politician and pamphleteer (d. 1818)

• Full date unknown

  • Richard Barrett, poet and United Irishman (d. 1818)
  • John Foster, 1st Baron Oriel, politician and Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1828)
  • Edmund Garvey, painter (d. 1813)
  • Nathaniel Grogan, painter (d. 1807)
  • James Napper Tandy, rebel leader (d. 1803 in Bordeaux)

Deaths

• 13 May – Thomas Milles, Church of Ireland Bishop of Waterford and Lismore since 1708 (b. 1671 in England)
• c. June – Bernard O'Gara, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam
• 1 December – John Abernethy, Presbyterian minister (b. 1680)

References

1. Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 215–216. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
2. Dickson, David (1997). Arctic Ireland. Belfast: White Row Press. ISBN 1870132858.
3. Moody, T. W.; et al., eds. (1989). A New History of Ireland. 8: A Chronology of Irish History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-821744-2.
4. Connolly, Sean (2008). Divided Kingdom: Ireland 1630–1800. Oxford University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-19-954347-2.