1818 – Former Griffith Barracks, South Circular Road, Dublin

Originally known as the Richmond House of Correction and later the Richmond Bridewell. Construction started in 1813 to designs by Francis Johnston, it opened in 1818, with later work in the 1850s by John Skipton Mulvany. It was described in 1837 in the Topographical Dictionary of Ireland as a “spacious structure enclosed by walls flanked with towers at the angles, and is entered by a massive gateway; between the outer wall and the main building is a wide space, intended for a rope-walk; the interior consists of two spacious quadrangles, the sides of which are all occupied by buildings; the cells, which are on the first floor, open into corridors with entrances at each end; the rooms in the second floor are used as work-rooms”.

At its height in the 1860s, the Richmond Bridewell normally held between 200 and 250 prisoners at any one time but in the year 1870, for example, over 3,000 prisoners passed through it.

One of the Richmond Bridewell’s most famous prisoners was the nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell, who was held there for three months in 1843 but was comfortably housed in rooms in the Governor’s suite. A number of Young Ireland leaders were also held here, notably Thomas Francis Meagher and William Smith O’Brien (both in 1848) and the Fenian leader James Stephens, who was arrested in 1865 but escaped shortly afterwards, fleeing to France and later America. His escape from the Richmond Bridewell created headlines across the English speaking world at the time.

In 1887 it was transferred to the War Department. Additions and extensions were completed by 11 November 1893 but prior to that, in summer 1892, a battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers was in occupation. In this era it was known as Wellington Barracks after the Duke of Wellington. Renamed Griffith Barracks after the death of Arthur Griffith in 1922. In 1991 the last soldiers left the Barracks and transferred to Cathal Brugha Barracks and the site handed over to the Office of Public Works as part of a government programme of closing a number of military installations around the country. Now the site of a third level educational college.