The Custom House

The Custom House is sited on the Liffey river front with Beresford place to the rear.

 Building started on the Custom House in 1781 and it was finished  10  year’s  later at a cost of £200.000.

   The Custom House was the first major public building built in  Dublin as an isolated structure with  four monumental facades. The building was built on slob land reclaimed from the estuary of the Liffey when the widestreets  Commissioner constructed the Quay’s. The outside of the building is richly adorned with  sculptures and coats-of-arms by Thomas Banks. Edward Smyth and Agnostino Carliniand  carved a series of sculpted stones to symbolise the river’s of Ireland.

The function of the Custom House is to store public records birth certificates etc.

 In the Irish civil war of 1921-1922 the interior of the Custom House was destroyed by fire lit by the IRA. The fire blazed for five days destroying a huge amount of public records. The fire was so hot that the dome melted and the stonework was still cracking because of cooling five months later. Gandons interior was completely destroyed.

Liam O'Halloran

 The Custom House Today

Previous     Menu   Next