Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle is the most politically loaded building in Ireland. Every significant act of British administration in Ireland from the 13th to the 20th century passed through or was ordered from this complex of buildings on Dame Street — the arrest warrants, the state trials, the proclamations, the relief measures, the suppressions. And the building's final great political moment — the January 1922 ceremony in which Michael Collins received the keys and the British flag came down — was entirely in keeping with everything that had preceded it. The castle was always the instrument of power over Ireland; in January 1922 that fact became, for the first time, a reason to celebrate.

The site's history begins before the English arrived. A Viking longphort (a fortified harbour encampment) was established at the Dubh Linn pool at the confluence of the Poddle and Liffey rivers in the 841; the longphort became the nucleus of the Viking settlement that is the origin of the modern city. The Norman invasion of Ireland, led by Strongbow in 1169–70 and consolidated by King Henry II in 1171, swept away the Viking political structures, and in 1204 King John of England ordered the construction of a royal castle at Dubh Linn — 'speedily, if possible,' the order said — on the foundations of the Viking settlement. The castle John built was a quadrilateral with four towers at the corners, a drawbridge across the Poddle, and the Liffey-side moat fed by a diversion of the river. Only one element of that 13th-century structure survives above ground: the Record Tower, on the southeast corner, with its walls 5 metres thick at the base and its original arrow loops.

For 700 years, Dublin Castle was the seat of English and then British rule in Ireland. The Lord Lieutenant — the Crown's representative in Ireland — lived in the State Apartments and conducted the ceremonies of viceregal administration from the castle's formal rooms. The State Apartments as they exist today are an 18th-century creation: after a fire in 1684 destroyed most of the medieval residential buildings, a new suite of Georgian rooms was built in the 1740s and 1750s to designs associated with architects including William Robinson. St Patrick's Hall, the largest and most formal room, was the setting for the installation of Knights of the Order of St Patrick from 1783 — the ceiling, painted by Vincenzo Valdre in the 1780s, depicts St Patrick and King George III's heraldic imagery in a composition designed to make the castle's institutional claims inescapable. The Throne Room, with its throne installed for George IV's 1821 visit to Ireland (the first British monarch to visit in 150 years), occupies the room above the main gate.

The Figure of Justice above the main gate — the statue of a woman holding scales, facing inward toward the castle courtyard rather than outward toward the city — was a standard source of Irish nationalist political commentary. The British administered justice that faced toward the castle rather than toward the people, the argument ran; and structurally, the statue's bronze scales are drilled with holes to prevent them filling with rainwater and tilting. The symbolism was too good for nationalist writers to leave alone.

The 1916 Rising began three kilometres away at the General Post Office, but the castle was its intended first target: a Citizen Army unit was to seize it on Easter Monday. The plan failed when the unit's commander was killed at the castle gate and the assault was abandoned. Four days later, James Connolly lay wounded in the Red Cross station in the castle grounds as the Rising was suppressed. The castle remained in British hands.

The handover in January 1922 was quiet: a short ceremony, a brief exchange between outgoing and incoming officials, the Irish tricolour replacing the Union Jack. Michael Collins, arriving to formally accept the transfer of power, was indeed reported to have been seven minutes late. The castle has been in Irish government hands ever since, serving as a conference centre, a state reception venue, and a tourist attraction — a building that has been performing the function of political stage for 800 years and has not entirely stopped.

The GYG-listed tour (t887214, 4.9★, 30 reviews, $123, 2.5 hours) is primarily a Trinity College/Book of Kells walking tour — 1.75 of the 2.5 hours are spent at Trinity — with Dublin Castle included as a **1-hour exterior stop** in Dame Street's courtyard. The tour explicitly visits the 'medieval Dublin Castle exterior,' and at least one reviewer confirms the state apartments were closed on their visit date without affecting the outdoor courtyard stop. This booking does not include access to the State Apartments or the Chester Beatty Library. Visitors wanting the full interior experience should book directly at dublincastle.ie for the guided State Apartments and underground excavation tour, or visit the Chester Beatty Library (free, in the castle garden) independently.