The Mansion House was built in 1710 by the merchant and property developer Joshua Dawson, after whom Dawson Street is named. It was constructed on a piece of poor quality marshy land outside the medieval city walls which was acquired by Dawson in 1705.[1]
Dublin Corporation purchased the house in 1715 for assignment as the official residence of the Lord Mayor. It retains this purpose to this day.
In 1821, the Round Room was built in order to receive King George IV.,[2] while the distinctive metal portico over the main door was erected for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1900.
In the 1930s and 1940s, plans were made to demolish the building, and all other buildings on the block on which it is located (which covered an area on Dawson Street, Molesworth Street, Kildare Street and the north side of St. Stephen's Green), to enable the building of a new Dublin City Hall. However the decision of the Government to erect a new Department of Industry and Commerce on a site on the same block, on Kildare Street, led to the abandonment of the plans.
In August 2006, the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force claimed they had planted a bomb in the Mansion House in 1981, in an attempt to wipe out the Sinn Féin leadership at their party conference of that year.[3] The claim led to a security alert at the house, as the Garda Siochana and army searched for a 25-year-old bomb, but none was found.[4]
On 21 January 2019, the one-hundredth anniversary of the First Dáil, another special joint session of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann was held in the Round Room and was again addressed by the Irish President. This time, the President was Michael D. Higgins.
Lord Mayors House, Dublin taken from Charles Brooking's map of Dublin in 1728.
Alfie Byrne (1930s), longest serving Lord Mayor in the 800-year history of the office
Jim Mitchell (1976–77), the youngest Lord Mayor of Dublin, aged 29, in the history of the office
First Dáil Éireann at the Mansion House 21 January 1919.
Crowd outside Mansion House ahead of War of Independence truce 8 July 1921
First sitting of Second Dáil in the Mansion House, 17 August 1921 (flopped image). In the un-flopped version of the photograph, sitting from left to right beside the Speaker's Chair are the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Seán T. O'Kelly, Éamon de Valera, Diarmuid O'Hegarty and F. P. Walsh, and sitting in front of the Speaker's Chair from left to right are Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy.