The Royal Hospital Kilmainham - Irish Museum of Modern Art
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The Royal Hospital Kilmainham Irish Museum of Modern Art
The Royal Hospital Kilmainham
The Royal Hospital Kilmainham, since 1991 the home of the
Irish Museum of Modern Art, is the oldest classical public
building in Ireland. Seen as both modern and international
in its own day, this former army pensioners’ retirement
home makes a stimulating location for an art museum that is
similarly forward-looking and dedicated to showing the best
of Irish and international art today. The colonial and exclusive
history of the walled grounds and authoritative architecture of
the RHK give an effective introduction to an art museum in a
post-colonial world which aspires to be both democratic and
inclusive. They also call attention to the unique combination
of factors that shaped the development of Irish art in the late
20th and early 21st Centuries.
The RHK was established and built between 1680 and
1684 on a 60 acre site granted by King Charles II at the
instigation of James Butler, First Duke of Ormonde. The cost
of building, approximately £22,500, was met by a levy on
soldiers’ pay. A retirement home rather than a hospital, the
building was erected on the ruins of the medieval hospital and
monastery of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem (Knights
Hospitallers). This building, founded by Strongbow in 1174,
replaced by the 7th Century Early Christian settlement of Cill
Maighneann from which Kilmainham takes its name.
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Plan
The building is
classical, built
around a courtyard
with central access
provided by
imposing arches
on three sides
and a fine walled
g arden on its
northern flank. The
arcaded courtyard
points to the Hospital’s roots, deriving as it does from the
cloisters of medieval monasteries and the courtyards of
Renaissance palaces and country houses (although the
concept derives directly from Les Invalides in Paris with which
the Duke of Ormonde was familiar from his years of exile
in France). The austere architecture, designed by William
Robinson, Surveyor General, provided a metaphor in its day
for the authority and dignity of the British Army in Ireland.
Retired soldiers (250 was the optimum number although
this was hugely exceeded at times) were accommodated in
small rooms on three levels on the southern, eastern and
western sides of the courtyard. Long corridors and arcades,
around a tree-lined courtyard gave ample opportunity for
exercise while meals and religious rituals were catered for in
ceremonial spaces in the north range which also provided the
private apartments for the successive Masters of the Hospital.
Robinson’s design was to influence the building, two years
after Kilmainham, of a sister establishment, the Chelsea
Royal Hospital, London, to designs by Sir Christopher Wren.
Robinson’s qualities as an architect can also be seen in
Marsh’s Library, a short distance away from the RHK, in the
Liberties.
The Chapel
The Chapel at the
Royal Hospital is
one of the treasures
of Irish architecture.
A simple rectangular
space with the
sanctuary at the east
end and a gallery for
the private devotion
of the Master of
the Hospital and
his family at the
opposite end, it is
transformed by
the richness and
b ravura of the
plasterwork ceiling
and the original
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woodcarving that surrounds the altar. Plasterwork on this
scale was unknown in Ireland in 1680 and the identity of
the stuccodore remains a tantalising mystery but there is
no doubt about his skill and inventiveness. Far more ornate
than one would expect a Protestant chapel of the period,
especially one in an institution for veteran soldiers, the flourish
of cherubs heads and vegetable swags is more in keeping
with the continental Baroque style of the 17th century than
was customary in Ireland at the time. The equally beautiful
woodcarving around the east end is almost certainly by the
hand of James Tabary, a Huguenot refugee who came to
Ireland in the 1680s, and his brothers. Tabary is clearly named
in the Hospital’s minute books as the carver responsible for
work on the altar rail.
The great stained-glass window may contain some of the
original glass from the medieval convent of St John although
a gift of glass was given by a young Queen Victoria when
she paid her first visit to the Hospital in 1849. Changes were
made to the reredos at that time. The coats of arms of the
various Masters of the Hospital are represented in glass in the
windows in the nave of the Chapel.
The blue wrought-iron gateway separating the Chapel and
the Great Hall is the gate for which the minutes of the Board
record payment of £50 in 1706.
The Great Hall
The main gathering place in the Royal Hospital was the
Great Hall which served as a dining hall and as place
for relaxation. Flags and military memorabilia, festooned
the wooden panelling in the 19th Century. The pensioners’
library which was housed in one of the alcoves has since
been removed, as have the exposed roof trusses of the
3
Victorian period. The white painted panelling and the coved
ceiling reflect the original appearance of the Hospital and
offer an appropriate background for one of Ireland’s most
historic portrait collections. These portraits, officially approved
likenesses of the founders, various British monarchs and Lord
Lieutenants of Ireland, were commissioned especially for the
Great Hall and in place by 1731, making them one of the
few such bodies of portraiture that can still be viewed in their
original location.
The Charter of the Hospital, and the personal copy of the
Bible presented by King Charles II are currently undergoing
conservation. The stained glass armorials on the windows of
the Great Hall were made by A.W. Childe who came to Ireland
in 1901 to assist in Sarah Purser’s plan to improve the quality
of Irish glass through An Túr Gloine. Childe subsequently
became the teacher of Ireland’s most famous stained-glass
artist - Harry Clarke.
The very fine carving of musical instruments over the doorway
leading to the chapel is a reference to the musician’s gallery, a
traditional feature of medieval great halls.
The steeple symmetrically placed above the north range was
planned by William Robinson but built by Thomas Burgh,
his successor as Surveyor General, using funding from a
lottery specifically established for the purpose. Burgh is also
responsible for the neighbouring Dr. Steeven’s Hospital which
is heavily influenced by the RHK.
4
The Formal Garden
The Formal Garden, formerly a physic garden, containing
medicinal herbs and later acquired by the Master of the RHK
as his private garden, was probably originally laid out in the
French style, after the patterns of Le Notre, the most popular
garden designer of the late 17th century. The minute books
record a request that the walls be so arranged as to maximise
the views from the Great Hall. The current restoration
incorporates features of French formal gardens with plants,
sculpture and furniture similar to those in vogue at the time
the Hospital was built.
The Gardener’s House, for which an estimate of £50 was
provided in October 1704, is said to have been designed
by Edward Lovett Pearce who also designed the Parliament
House, now the Bank of Ireland in College Green. The
classical figures are modern replicas of antique sculpture while
the three large putti on the terrace flanking the main entrance
to the gardens are all that remain at Kilmainham of the Great
Statue of Queen Victoria which formerly stood at the side
of Leinster House, now Dáil Eireann, Kildare Street but was
stored in Kilmainham before moving to its current home in
Sydney, Australia.
The Grounds
The site of the RHK has been home of a number of historic
burial grounds spanning well over a thousand years. Bully’s
Acre, one of Dublin’s oldest cemeteries, on the west end of
the meadows, features the shaft of a large 10th century granite
cross that may have been part of the Abbey of St Maigneann,
founded in 606. It was here that Brian Boru camped with his
army on the eve of the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Since then,
monks, knights, princes and less well known citizens of Dublin
have been buried here, including Robert Emmet, whose body
was temporarily interred at Kilmainham before being removed
in secrecy to an unmarked grave elsewhere. The poor could
be buried here without charge and opted to do so regularly
until the cholera epidemic of 1832 led to its closure to the
public. Body snatching was a regular activity in Bully’s Acre
in the 18th and 19th centuries and other undignified behaviour
occurred around the annual pattern of St John on 24th June.
Attempts by the hospital authorities to close Bully’s Acre to the
public to prevent rowdy outbreaks were foiled in 1764 by the
notorious Liberty Boys.
5
To the north west of Bully’s Acre there is a Burial Ground
for the Private Soldiers of the RHK. Private soldiers and
N.C.O.S were buried here, their graves formerly marked by iron
shamrocks which were replaced in the last century by small
marble headstones. Soldiers who died during the 1916 Rising
were also buried here.
The Officers’ Cemetery is situated on the other side of the
west driveway. As well as the graves of those officers who lived
at the Hospital this cemetery also contains the oldest legible
civilian headstone, that of Hugh and Elizabeth Hackett “who
died in the year 1652”. The oldest military tombstone is that of
Corporal William Proby who died in 1700. He had served as a
musketeer at the battle of Bagotrath and was wounded at the
Battle of the Boyne.
The Deputy Master’s and Adjutant General’s House on the
North and South Eastern corners of the main building are all
that survive of four flanker buildings that originally included
a separate kitchen building. The Deputy Master’s House,
which dates from 1763, has now been restored into an award-
winning gallery space and the Adjutant General’s House is
still undergoing restoration. The former stables were extended
and restored to create artists’ studios in the early 1990s and
now house the Museum’s artist-in-residence programme. The
Richmond Tower, at the western entrance to the RHK, is not
original to this site. It was moved here from the junction of
Watling Street and Victoria Quay in 1847 as a response to the
traffic problems arising from the opening of the new railway
terminus at Kingsbridge, now Heuston Station. It’s architect
Francis Johnston was also responsible for alterations to the
courtyard and north range of the main building in the early
years of the 19th century.
Life in the Royal Hospital
The life of a private soldier in the period between 1684
and 1928, when the hospital finally ceased to function as a
retirement home, was sometimes action packed and exciting
but more often it was grim. Retirement to the RHK, however,
must have gone a long way to compensate for any hardships
endured during active service. In the days before social welfare
took over the care of the elderly or infirm the Duke of Ormonde’s
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plan to look after his veterans must have done a lot to ease the
burden of the press gang and to entice young men to take the
king’s shilling. At Kilmainham the infirm were housed on the
ground floor, officers were allocated the first floor, where the
height of the ceilings made it possible to fit mezzanine space
for servants, and more physically fit veterans occupied the top
floor. The soldiers slept two to a bed and two beds to a room
with “5 yds. of Kiddermaster curtains” around each bed and
a musket rack in the corner. They were well fed with a beef
and beer ration far in excess of that enjoyed by the general
population outside. Indeed so good was the diet at Kilmainham
that instructions had to be given forbidding the inmates to
give food to visitors. Nonetheless the minutes of December
10, 1708 record that soldiers had protested “on pretence
of the badness of the
bread”, which the Board
found to be perfectly
acceptable. The four
leading protesters were
arrested for their pains
and the remaining
s oldiers had their
weekly allowance of 2p
halved for the month.
Things were not always
so austere. As early
as 1693 each soldier
was to be given 2p per
week to buy tobacco
but seven years later
the Board ordered “that
it be an established
rule, that if any soldier
of the Hospital shall
presume to marry, he
be immediately turned out of the house, and the Hospital
clothes taken from him.” Soldiers found solace in other ways.
In 1716 and again in 1736 there are references to requests
to establish a Brew house while a passage in the boundary
wall leading to the Black Lion pub was thought to be “very
improper” and was walled up.
Military discipline and rituals were observed at all times and a
special pensioners’ uniform was worn.
Masters of the Royal Hospital
The Charter given by King Charles II tells us that “no person
be chosen Master of the said hospital, but such a person as
shall be of the Protestant religion, as by law established...and
a gentleman by descent and of above fifty years of age, and
an unmarried man, and one that hath served our Royal Father,
or us, or shall have served us, in the capacity of a captain at
least...and that shall not have of his own estate to the value
of One hundred pounds per annum at the time of election...”
7
Although Masters were not expected to have significant means
they were expected to furnish their quarters. In 1738 a grant
of £500 was given to the then Master, Col. Wansbrough to
enable him to buy appropriate furniture. The necessity to
provide personal furnishings may explain the absence of
period furniture in the Master’s Quarters today. The Masters
lived in the suite of rooms known as the Johnston suite, so
called after the architect Francis Johnston who remodelled
them in the early 19th century, filling in the north-western
arcades to create a gracious dining-room.
Women Pensioners
Only one female pensioner is recorded in Kilmainham. Mary
Storey, was recommended to the Board in March 1744, as
having served in the army. Her role is not described but a
grant of one shilling and sixpence per week was given to her
as an “out” pensioner. A number of women were employed
at the Hospital on a regular basis as nurses, catering and
housekeeping staff.
Subsequent history of RHK
Pensioners in fluctuating numbers continued to be
accommodated at Kilmainham despite attempts to turn the
building into a military barracks. One such attempt was
prevented in 1834 when the Master, Lieutenant – General Sir
Hussey Vivian raised a petition from the citizens in Dublin to
retain it. In spite of this the military presence grew throughout
the 19th century and the building was shelled in 1916.
The RHK was formally handed over to the Irish Free State
Army in 1922 when most of the existing pensioners went to
Chelsea. Plans to turn the building into the seat of the Dail
and Senate were revoked and from 1931 to 1950 the RHK
became the headquarters of the Garda Síochána. A series of
restoration programmes were put in place since 1957 and in
1985 the building opened as the National Centre for Culture
and the Arts. During the 1970s the internationally acclaimed
artist Joseph Beuys visited Dublin and selected the RHK
as the site for his proposed Free International University
For Creativity. Beuys’ dream was not realised but in 1991,
following some architectural modification which included the
glazing of the southern entrance arch and the installation of
the first glass staircase in Ireland, the Irish Museum of Modern
Art was formally opened here by the Taoiseach of the day, Mr.
Charles J. Haughey.
Written by Catherine Marshall.
Research by Phil Mason, Duchas.
Photography by Roseanne Lynch, Ronan McCrea and Denis Mortell.
8OPW Heritage Services
The Office of Public Works offer free guided heritage tours
during the summer season. Tours start at the Heritage Room
at 11am, 12noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm and 4pm. Please contact
the Museum or refer to www.imma.ie for details.
A permanent heritage exhibition is on view all year round.
Irish Museum of Modern Art
The Irish Museum of Modern Art is Ireland’s leading national
institution for the collection and presentation of modern and
contemporary art.
The Museum’s mission is to foster within society an
awareness, understanding and involvement in the visual
arts through policies and programmes which are excellent,
innovative and inclusive. The Museum presents a wide
variety of art in a dynamic programme of exhibitions, which
regularly includes bodies of work from it’s own Collection and
it’s award-winning Education and Community Department. It
also creates widespread access to art and artists through its
Studio and National programmes.
How to get there
Museum Entrance on Military Road.
By bus: Buses to Heuston Station (5 minutes walk via Military
Road; 26 from Wellington Quay; 51, 79 from Aston Quay; 90
Dart Feeder Bus from Connolly and Tara Street Stations to
Heuston Station. Buses to James Street (5 minutes walk via
steps to Bow Lane onto Irwin Street and Military Road); 123
from O’Connell Street/Dame Street; 51B, 78A from Aston
Quay.
By car: 10 minute drive from city centre. Unlimited free car
parking.
On foot: Approx. 30 to 40 minutes from city centre.
By train: 5 minute walk from Heuston Station; from Connolly
and Tara Street Stations by 90 bus to Heuston Station.
By Luas: Red line to Heuston Station.
9Museum Opening Hours Tuesday - Saturday 10.00am - 5.30pm Except Wednesday 10.30am - 5.30pm Sunday & Bank Holidays 12noon - 5.30pm Monday Closed Last admission 5.15pm Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Visitors are asked not to touch or photograph the artworks. Formal Gardens and Bookshop open Museum hours. itsa@imma Café Open Monday 10.00am - 3.00pm Tuesday - Saturday 10.00am - 5.00pm Sunday and Bank Holidays 12noon - 5.00pm Guided Tours of Exhibitions Wednesday, Friday and Sunday 2.30pm It is also possible to pre-book a guided tour. These free tours are available Tuesday - Friday at 10.00am, 2.30pm and 4.00pm. To book please telephone 01 612 9967 or email frontofhouse@imma.ie at least three weeks in advance of your intended visit. Visitor Facilities With the exception of the Ground Floor East Wing Gallery, where access is limited, the Museum is wheelchair accessible. For information on set down facilities for disabled visitors please contact the information desk on 01 612 9967. Wheelchair available on request. There are also adapted toilets, baby changing facilities and a locker room. A lunchroom is available for children’s groups. Booking is required at least two weeks in advance. Please contact the information desk for more details. For further information please contact: Irish Museum of Modern Art/Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8 t: +353-1-612-9900 f: +353-1-612-9999 e: info@imma.ie w: www.imma.ie
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