. Dublin Castle was first founded as a major defensive work by
Meiler Fitzhenry on the orders of King
John of England in 1204, sometime after the
Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169, when it was commanded that a castle be built with strong walls and good ditches for the defence of the city, the administration of justice, and the protection of the King's treasure. It was the first administrative centre for the English Crown in Ireland since the unsuccessful first expedition of John to Ireland in 1185 when he built and issued royal charters from
Ardfinnan Castle. Largely complete by 1230, the castle was of typical Norman courtyard design, with a central square without a
keep, bounded on all sides by tall defensive walls and protected at each corner by a circular tower. Sited to the southeast of Norman Dublin, the castle formed one corner of the outer perimeter of the city, using the
River Poddle as a natural means of defence along two of its sides. The city wall directly abutted the castle's northeast Powder Tower, extending north and westwards around the city before rejoining the castle at its southwestern
Bermingham Tower. In January 1592,
Red Hugh O'Donnell and brothers Art and
Henry O'Neill escaped from the castle after a period of imprisonement. Once free of the castle, Henry O'Neill went his own direction and returned safely to
Ulster, whereas O'Donnell and Art, alongside a guide sent to help them, continued south to the rural valley of Glenmalure, a
rebel stronghold where they knew they would find safety. The escape and subsequent journey to Glenmalure at night in winter, during which Art died of exposure, has been commemorated officially every January since 2009 by the annual
Art O'Neill Challenge endurance race/walk. In 1620 the English-born judge
Luke Gernon was greatly impressed by the wall: "a huge and mighty wall, foursquare, and of incredible thickness". In the 17th century, the
Earl of Arran described the Castle as "the worst castle in the worst situation in Christendom". The Poddle was diverted into the city through archways where the walls adjoined the castle, artificially flooding the moat of the fortress's city elevations. One of these archways and part of the wall survive buried underneath the 18th-century buildings, and are open for public viewing. Through the
Middle Ages the wooden buildings within the castle square evolved and changed, the most significant addition being the Great Hall built of stone and timber, variously used as Parliament house, court of law and banqueting hall. The building survived until 1673, when it was damaged by fire and demolished shortly afterwards. The
Court of Castle Chamber, the Irish counterpart to the English
Star Chamber, sat in Dublin Castle in a room, which was specially built for it about 1570. In 1764, English traveller John Bush wrote: "The Castle, as it is called from its having been the situation of one, I suppose, of which at present there are very few remains, is the residence of the lord lieutenant when in Ireland, but has very little of grandeur in its external appearance besides the large square court-yard, which it encloses. But the rooms, some of them, are large and elegant".
United Irishmen General
Joseph Holt, a participant in the
1798 Rising, was incarcerated in the Bermingham Tower before being transported to New South Wales in 1799. In 1884, officers at the Castle were at the centre of a
homosexual scandal incited by the Irish Nationalist politician
William O'Brien through his newspaper
United Ireland. In 1890, the castle grounds were summarised in a tourist guidebook with the following entry: "(The castle) is now a gloomy building, of two yards, with little suggestion of a Castle about it. In 1907, the
Irish Crown Jewels were stolen from the Castle. Suspicion fell upon the Officer of Arms, Sir
Arthur Vicars, but rumours of his homosexuality and links to socially important gay men in London, may have compromised the investigation. The jewels have never been recovered. on the Chapel Royal At the very beginning of the
Easter Rising of 1916, a force of twenty-five
Irish Citizen Army members were able to seize the entrance and guard room of the Castle before reinforcements for the small garrison arrived. During the
Anglo-Irish War the Castle was the nerve centre of the British effort against
Irish separatism. On the night of
Bloody Sunday in 1920, three
Irish Republican Army members
Dick McKee,
Conor Clune and
Peadar Clancy, were tortured and killed there. When the
Irish Free State came into being in 1922, Dublin Castle ceased to function as the administrative seat. It served for some years as temporary Courts of Justice (the
Four Courts, the home of the Irish courts' system, had been destroyed in 1922). After the courts vacated the premises, the Castle was used for state ceremonies. As
President of the Executive Council,
Éamon de Valera received credentials there from newly arrived ambassadors to Ireland on behalf of King
George V in the 1930s. In 1938,
Douglas Hyde was inaugurated as
President of Ireland at the Castle. All inaugurations of subsequent presidents have taken place there since. President
Erskine Hamilton Childers' lying-in-state took place there in November 1974, as did that of former President Éamon de Valera in September 1975. ==Buildings and architecture==