The General Post Office O’Connell Street, Dublin
T
he General Post Office on Dublin’s O’Connell Street has arguably come to symbolise the 1916 Rising more than any other building. The building was selected as the headquarters of the Rising primarily because it was the communications heart of the country, a position it held from 1818 when it first opened its doors to the public. Despite the damage to the building in Easter Week, 1916, the GPO survives as one of the oldest operating postal headquarters in the world. The GPO was designed by the Armagh-born architect Francis Johnston (1760-1829). Johnston was regarded as an innovator, equally adept in the neo-Classical and neo-Gothic styles of architecture. He was subsequently appointed as Architect to the Board of Works in 1805, an appointment that afforded him the opportunity to work on important civic buildings. His design for the GPO was intended as a noble centrepiece bringing elegance and grandeur to a fashionable boulevard.
Figure (right): A drawing signed (1814) by Francis Johnston (1760-1829) titled ‘Plan for the General Post Office, Dublin. The Ground Floor’ shows the original U-shaped plan centring on a Common Hall entered via the portico. To the left, or south, are the offices of the Penny Post including a room for Letter Carriers and for the Sorting Office. A square Hall gives access on the left to a Waiting Room outside the office of the Secretary and on the right to the staircase accessing the Boardroom on the first floor. To the right, or north, of the Common Hall are the octagonal Inland Sorting Office and a half-octagonal office set aside for Letter Carriers: both offices access a corner room labelled as Alphabet. The courtyard, entered by gateways in Henry Street and Prince's Street, is enclosed on the west side by a row of
Above: An engraving by Benjamin Winkles from a drawing by George Petrie RHA (1790-1866) published in Dublin Delineated in Twenty-Six Views of the Principal Public Buildings (1831).
service buildings with offices and a Mail Coach Guard House centring on a square room labelled as Fire Engine. Courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive Johnston’s original design comprised a U-shaped building wrapping around a coach yard accessible via carriageways opening off Henry Street to the north and Prince's Street to the south. The front elevation stands three storeys tall and was constructed of granite quarried from Golden Hill, Co. Wicklow. The centrepiece comprised a
projecting Portland stone portico of six stop-fluted Ionic columns supporting an anthemion-detailed frieze and pediment (fig. 3). Above the Royal Coat of Arms in the tympanum stood the symbolic figures of Mercury and Fidelity flanking Hibernia. The foundation stone of the neoClassical building was laid by Lord Charles Whitworth (1752-1825), Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on the 12th August, 1814. Work on the GPO progressed steadily for almost three
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A view of the underside of the portico shows the Greek Key fret motif that recurs on the exterior and
reconstructed interior of the GPO.
Above: A postcard (1865) showing the neo-Classical
ensemble formed by the GPO and the adjacent
Nelson's Pillar. As symbols of imperialism, both were
ultimately targeted by nationalists seeking or commemorating
independence:
the
GPO
was
occupied on Easter Monday 1916 while the pillar fell on the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising in 1966.
and a half years with the finished building opening for business on the 6th of January 1818. The total cost of construction was approximately £50.000. The functions of the post office continued to expand and in order to accommodate new technological 28 www.heritageireland.ie
equipment the internal fabric of the building needed reworking. Repeated additions and alterations, all of which were ultimately unsuitable, culminated in a major new design proposal supervised by John Howard Pentland (1855-1919) of the Board of Works. Work on the new scheme began in 1904 with the acquisition of Ball’s Bank in Henry Street, which was adapted for office use. A further property was acquired in Prince’s Street in 1910 and demolished to make way for the erection of a four-storey wing housing registry, sorting offices and sufficient accommodation for postal staff. On the
Above: Just as the royal insignia on post boxes would come to of post offices across the country, were removed or replaced. A stone work, is the only physical evidence of the long-lost coat of
Below: A photograph from The Irish Builder (25th March, 1916) sh (1855-1919) of the Board of Works. Fittingly, Johnston’s Greek K geometric ceilings. Courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive
completion of these two phases in 1912, attention was focused on the Johnston building where the most significant alteration saw the replacement of the central entrance hall. Visitors to the renewed GPO entered a large new public office. The room boasted a reinforced segmental vaulted ceiling supported at either end by columnar screens of coupled Tuscan columns. A counter of Burmese teak encircled a mosaic floor highly polished to give the appearance of glass. One can only surmise that the builders and craftsmen packed up their tools
FEATURE THE GPO along historical lines, minus the Royal Coat of Arms in the pediment, the interior was rebuilt to an entirely new design. The redevelopment made use of the commercial potential of the surrounding plots and led to the creation of the GPO Arcade, a new steel-framed building linking Henry Street and Prince's Street with colonnaded rows of shops sheltered by a glazed polygonal roof over a ribbed substructure.
be over-painted with green, the Royal Coat of Arms, a feature A Portland stone insert, slightly brighter than the surrounding f arms at the GPO.
howing the new public office designed by John Howard Pentland Key fret motif appeared in the mosaic floor, the frieze and the
Today, little of the interior has been altered since it was officially re-opened by President Cosgrave in 1929. The entire reconstruction was completed in 1932. The GPO continues its traditional role as the principal post office of Ireland and distances to Dublin are still measured from its front door. For more information on the architectural history of the GPO see www.buildingsofireland.ie Below right: Although the shell of the GPO remained structurally sound, a view by Thomas J. Westropp taken from the viewing platform on Nelson's
Pillar shows the destruction caused to the interior caused the by heavy shellfire towards the end of Easter Week. Thomas Johnson Westropp (1860-1922), was a noted Irish antiquary who documented the destruction wrought in the city by the Rising. His images remain a vivid record of the violence and destruction of Easter Week. An exhibition entitled ‘After Easter: Photographs of Dublin by Thomas Johnson Westropp’ is on view at the Irish Architectural Archive, Merrion Square, until 31st August, 2016.
To celebrate the role of the General Post Office during the Easter Rising, the GPO has recently opened a new exhibition entitled ÂGPO Witness HistoryÊ. www.gpowitnesshistory.ie
satisfied that their work would endure, little realising, however, that the interior would be lost within a matter of weeks. Despite the intense heat of the fire of 1916, the shell of the GPO was found to be structurally sound, a fact which contributed to the decision in 1924 to rebuild rather than level the site and start anew. The reconstruction was carried out under the supervision of Thomas Joseph Byrne (1876-1939), Chief Architect to the Board of Public Works. Nothing survived of Johnston's interior following the devastation of 1916. While the façade was restored www.heritageireland.ie
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