Come Here To Me!

Chancery Place, next to the Four Courts

While most Dubliners are familiar with the bullet holes of the Daniel O’Connell monument and other Dublin landmarks, there are other buildings and monuments which show the scars of the Easter Rising. One particularly interesting example is the Medical Mission at Chancery Place, today the Dublin Christian Mission building.

During the rebellion, the Four Courts was occupied by the 1st Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, led by Edward Daly. Only 150 men, of a 400 strong Battalion, showed up for service at the beginning of the insurrection. On Easter Monday, the men of the Four Courts came into contact with a party of Lancers (cavalry) who were escorting ammunition along the River Liffey.

As Michael McNally has detailed in Easter Rising 1916: Birth of the Irish Republic, upon being fired upon the Lancers dismounted and “broke into the Collier Dispensary and the Medical Mission opposite, and began to fortify their position, bringing the bulk of the arms and ammunition into the building.” Paul O’Brien has written in Crossfire: The Battle of the Four Courts, 1916 that “the Lancers hauled boxes of ammunition through the door, overturned the wagons to form a barricade and the troopers took up firing positions in the windows. Horses were cut loose and the riderless mounts ran wild, the sound of their hooves clattering along the cobbled streets.”

Having occupied the Medical Mission, the Lancers were holed up there for much of Easter Week, and were caught in sporadic firefights with republicans. The Medical Mission today tells the story of that firefight, and the incredible damage to the front of the building speaks for itself:

Medical Mission

Notice that the marks are particularly evident around the windows of the building:

Medical Mission

In this image taken at the conclussion of the insurrection showing a barricade at the Chancery Place gate of the Four Courts, the Medical Missionn can be seen behind the gate:

Four Courts, 1916. Image uploaded to dublin.ie by ‘boxman’.

Today, the Medical Mission of 1916 is the Dublin Christian Mission, which serves the poor and homeless of the city.