The General Post Office

Situated on O’Connell Street, the General Post Office is the headquarters of An Post, the Irish postal service. The building was fully constructed within three years on the design of Francis Johnson who also designed St George’s Church and oversaw the conversion of the Parliament house into the Bank of Ireland.

The façade of the GPO is 220 feet high and has a 80 foot wide portico with six fluted Ionic columns. On the acroteria of the pediment stand three statues by John Smyth. Mercury is on the right, Fidelity on the left and Hibernia in the centre.

During the Easter Rising of 1916 when Irish rebellions rose up against British Rule in Ireland, the General Post Office was used as the headquarters for the uprising. British forces assaulted the building while a British gun boat assaulted the building from the River Liffey. If you look closely at the GPO and the statues on O’Connell Street, bullet holes are easily visible.

Today the building is a functioning post office, and even if you don’t need to post anything, a visit to the GPO is worthwhile. The brilliance of the architecture is plainly obvious to all. Space, light and form are all used in combination to brilliant effect.

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