5 Ship Street Barracks

Ship Street Barracks

This large range of buildings, running the length of Great Ship Street, was created as a barracks in the nineteenth century following the failed rebellion led by Robert Emmet in 1803. It housed military forces (as distinct from the Constabulary and Police) and during the War of Independence it was home to different regiments, on rotation. A small portion of it was occupied by the “F Company” of the Auxiliaries, while prisoners, such as Ernie O’Malley, were familiar with the cells that made up part of its basement.

One soldier, Private J.P. Swindlehurst, who kept a diary, described his arrival in Dublin as follows:

We looked and felt terrible, cold, hungry and fed up to the teeth. Stewed Bully [corned beef] and dried bread didn’t improve our spirits, but the tea has been better. … Ship Street Barracks … is the new address, and it’s raining, what a life.

Life after arrival wasn’t much better for the regular soldier. In March 1920, the Barracks was occupied by a detachment of the North Staffordshire Regiment, and correspondence from that time gives an insight into the basic facilities provided for the troops. Complaining about these facilities, their Commanding Officer wrote:

I beg to report that the Latrine Accommodation for the Company of my Detachment billeted in Dublin Castle is inadequate. There are 110 men continually living in the Castle and there are only two Latrine Seats, one of which is damaged.

Swindlehurst described how “each day was a repetition of the previous one, if we weren’t on guard [duty] in some place, we were patrolling somewhere else, or else having a route march”. He was assigned to guard duty at City Hall and Jury’s Hotel on Dame Street and at Mountjoy Prison, and to policing the city curfew, as well as guarding the gates to the Castle. He lamented how “People in England don’t know anything of the conditions here, shooting occurs in different parts of the city so often that they become of no interest, unless you happen to be near the flying bullets.”

On one of his occasional rest periods he noted: “I have a pass out, but only for two hours, we had some chips for supper, but they were awful, done in olive oil or else wagon grease, I think the latter, we couldn’t manage them.” His experience could be summed up in his own words thus:

What a hole to be in … Roll on day of discharge.

This large range of buildings, running the length of Great Ship Street, was created as a barracks in the nineteenth century following the failed rebellion led by Robert Emmet in 1803.