A Brief History of St. James’s University Hospital
St. James’s University Hospital is Trinity College Dublin’s primary teaching hospital, having 1,010 beds. However, it is much more than a modern healthcare facility, its history is intrinsically linked to the social, political and medical history of Ireland. The site on which the hospital stands has seen immense change over the course of the last three centuries.
In 1667, Dublin Corporation spent £300 on the laying of foundations for a workhouse on the site where St. James’s Currently stands. However, the Williamite War broke out between William of Orange and James II and this put a halt to the construction. Fast Forward to 1703 when an act was passed to construct a workhouse "for the employment and maintaining the poor thereof". In the same year, Mary Duchess of Ormond laid the foundation stone for the new development and in 1706, the House of Industry workhouse welcomed its first inmates.
Renowned Irish writer, Jonathan Swift advocated for the creation of facilities for the abandoned children of Dublin and just under 30 years after the foundation of the House of Industry, a Foundling Hospital was added to the workhouse.
The Foundling Hospital,
Map of the South Dublin Union Complex
Both Jonathan Swift and Arthur Guiness served on the Board of Governors of the workhouse and the Foundling Hospital, which shared the same Board of Governors until 1772. In the same year, the inmates of the workhouse were moved to the House of Industry Hospitals, which later became the North Dublin Union. The Foundling Hospital continued to operate until 1831, when it too closed. The Foundling Hospital was plagued by a very high mortality rate. In some years more than 90% of infants died due to poor sanitation, undernourishment and the rampant spread of infectious diseases.
With the passage of the Irish Poor Law in 1838, the old House of Industry on James’s Street became the South Dublin Union, which also absorbed the buildings of the old Foundling Hospital.
During the Great Famine, the South Dublin Union became a refuge for the poor and starving of Dublin. After the famine, the workhouse infirmary, which initially cared for only the sick inmates, began to take on an increasing role as an infirmary, where the sick of Dublin could access very able and educated physicians, such as Robert Mayne.
The Easter Rising, 1916:
During the Easter Rising, the South Dublin Union (SDU) was occupied by Éamonn Ceannt and the 4th Battalion of the Irish Volunteers. The SDU was considered a vital strategic stronghold that housed some of the most chaotic and bloodiest fighting of the rebellion spread over 53 acres of wards, courtyards, alleys and old stone buildings.
On Easter Monday, April 24th 1916, around 120 volunteers occupied the South Dublin Union workhouse complex, while it remained functioning as a workhouse and hospital, which housed 3,282 people at the time. Éamnn Ceannt set up the garrison’s headquarters in the Nurse’s Home, which was originally the Workhouse Master’s House built in 1740.
Other Volunteers, including well known rebels such as Cathal Brugha and W.T Cosgrave were stationed in the Board Room located above the arch on James’s Street.
Due to the nature and anatomy of the SDU complex, littered with tight corridors, stairwells and wards, the fighting turned into a deadly game of hide and seek, as described by J. V. Joyce. By Easter Tuesday, the garrison was split in two with British troops infiltrating parts of the SDU complex, including the Dining Hall and the hospital block just opposite the Nurse’s Home, cutting off the rebels in the Board Room. In attempts to remain in contact with Ceannt and the rest of the garrison, volunteers’s made “mouse holes” through which they could move between buildings under cover.
Nurse Margaret Keogh is considered the first non-combatant death in the rising as a whole, when she was shot accidentally by a British Soldier.
Above: The Front and the Rear of the Nurse’s Home. Now home to the TCD Department of Gerontology
Below: View of the Nurse’s Home from the South, inside the SDU complex
Below, from left to right:
Front door of the Nurses Home taken from the back hall.
The back hall of the Nurses Home featuring its staircase.
The front entrance to the SDU, on St. James’s Street. The top windows are where the Board Room was located, where rebel forces occupied in 1916.
Inside the SDU main entrance, once again featuring the Board Room above the arch.
References:
alvamacgowan (2016). St James’s Hospital – thearchaeologyof1916. [online] thearchaeologyof1916. Available at: https://thearchaeologyof1916.wordpress.com/tag/st-jamess-hospital/ [Accessed 31 Mar. 2025].
Fallon, D. (2016). Nurse Margaret Keogh, the first civilian fatality of the Rising. [online] Irish Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/nurse-margaret-keogh-the-first-civilian-fatality-of-the-rising/34510459.html [Accessed 28 Oct. 2024].
Militaryarchives.ie. (2022). Bureau of Military History –. [online] Available at: https://photogallery.militaryarchives.ie/displayimage.php?album=48&pid=450#top_display_media [Accessed 31 Mar. 2025].
www.stjames.ie. (n.d.). History | St James’s Hospital. [online] Available at: https://www.stjames.ie/aboutus/history/.