The G.P.O.

The General Post Office(GPO) is the main building on O'Connell Street, Dublin City's main street and is the home to An Post, the Irish postal service. It was built between 1815-18 and is one of the last great georgian buildings built in the city. Its main featres being the huge protico with six columns, which is surmounted by three figures, Mercury, Hibernia and Fidelity. Historically the GPO's greatest signifigance was as the headquarters of the 1916 Rising. It was here that Patrick Pearse read aloud 'The Proclamation of the Irish Republic' and alongside James Connolly and some of the Irish Volunteers occupied the building for a week. Other buildings throughout the city were also taken, but all of them subsequently surrendered and most of the leaders executed. The GPO itself was mostly destroyed from shelling and wasn't rebuilt until 1925, when the Irish Free State was set up. In present day the GPO is open daily as a post office, and its history is remembered with paintings inside commerating the 1916 Rising, a plaque of the 'The Proclamation of the Irish Republic' which hangs on the wall and by a statue of the Legendary Celtic Warrior, Cuchulainn.