Barracks

The National Monuments Service's description

South Great George’s Street Barracks 

A 19th-century barracks on South Great George’s Street Barracks was recorded in 2025 in the ‘Our Shared Built Military Heritage: The online mapping, inventorying and recording of the Army Barracks of Ireland, 1690-1921' a project that was funded by the North South Research Programme 2022-2024 and co-led by University College Dublin and The Open University' (Forbes and McGrath 2025).  The barracks was described in the inventory of the ‘Army Barracks of Ireland - Our Shared Military Heritage, 1690-1921’ as follows: ‘South Great George’s Street Barracks was one of the many new barracks established in Dublin following the 1798 and 1803 rebellions and the ongoing Napoleonic Wars. The barracks was established in 1803 when a lease was taken on 11 houses on the west side of the street between Exchequer and Dame Streets. Like Ship Street Barracks, it was intended to provide security for Dublin Castle, which it backed onto.  It was an infantry barracks and the garrison in 1822 consisted of 16 officers and 144 men. In 1824 it was described as dilapidated, though it continued to be used as a barracks until 1835 when it was designated as a recruiting establishment. By the early 1850s it was no longer in use by the military and the whole section of street was redeveloped as Pim’s Department Store, which continued in existence into the twentieth century, with those later buildings eventually being demolished in the 1970s’.

 

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on description taken from inventory of the ‘Army Barracks of Ireland - Our Shared Military Heritage, 1690-1921

 

Date of Compilation: 11 November 2025

References

Forbes, S. and McGrath, C. I. 2025  Army Barracks of Ireland, 1690–1921: Barracks Dataset and Supplementary Files (version 1.0). The Open University. Dataset.