Barracks

The National Monuments Service's description

James’s Street Barracks

 

An 18th-century barracks on James's Street 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; ‘The James’s Street Barracks was situated in a converted eighteenth-century soldier’s infirmary and was one of a whole series of short-lived barracks established in reaction to the 1798 Rebellion and the ongoing wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. In 1801, its capacity was for six officers and 200 soldiers while in 1812-13 it was recorded as being able to accommodate six infantry officers and 180 infantrymen. The barracks was a leasehold. It was temporarily closed in 1818 but in use again in 1824. By 1848 it was described as an old barracks. There is no evidence of the original building, and the entire site is now part of the Guinness brewery'.

 

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.