History of the Embassy

Gaeilge

36 Ailesbury Road
Dublin 4

This house has historical associations with the fight for Irish freedom. It was built in 1920 by Mrs Nell Humphreys, of Limerick, who lived in it with her family and her sister, Miss Anno O’Rahilly.

Nell Humphreys

Their brother, commandant O’Rahilly, was one of the leaders of the Irish Volunteers, and it was he who called the first meeting, on 11 November 1913, to form that body. He was killed in the Rising of 1916 leading his men against a barricade outside the GPO.

Commandant and Anno O’Rahilly

His wife was an American who was educated in Paris, and they lived in that city for about a year when the were first married.

The house was built by Batt O’Connor, who was a close friend of Michael Collins. A secret room, in what is now the washroom, was included in the construction, as the War of Independence was the raging, and all the Irish leaders were "on their keeping". Cathal Brugha, who was Minister for Defence in the underground Irish Government, used the house as his headquarters for lengthy periods, and slept at night in the secret room.

Many of the Irish leaders, including President De Valera, Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, visited the house, which was used for meetings of the Dáil, Cabinet, Headquarters Staff, and Republican courts. Despite many raids, the secret room was never discovered, and on one occasion two members of the Active Service Unit were hidden in this room during a raid which lasted several hours.

Michael Collins

During the Civil War the Humpheys family were on the Republican side, and the house was the Dublin headquarters. On the morning of 4 November 1922, the house was raided by Free State troops, who went straight to the secret room and proceeded to burst their way into it. Ernie O’Malley, who was the Assistant Chief of Staff of the Republican forces, was in the room, and the rushed out, revolver blazing. In the ensuing fight he killed one soldier, wounded several, and cleared the house of soldiers. But with all the shooting Miss O’Rahilly got a bullet in the jaw.

Eamon De Valera

O’Malley then tried to escape by the back garden, but a soldier behind the front wall hit him several times (he had already been wounded many times: he escaped from Kilmainham Jail, where he was under sentence of death, with the help of a friendly British soldier). He dragged himself back to the house where he was subsequently captures.

As Miss O’Rahilly was being carried away on a stretcher, she managed to whisper to the maid: "there is money behind the curtain in my room; give it to the first person who calls". It was a sum of thousands of pounds, and was the entire resources of the Prisoners’ Dependence Fund, of which Miss O’Rahilly was treasurer. The first person to call was the bread man, and when he had handed in his bread, the maid thrust on him this large sum of money in notes. Although the bread man was not involved in the movement and his wages at the time would not have been more than £2 a week, he gave back the money without a penny missing.

Ernie O’Malley

Some months later, in the spring of 1923, a hand grenade was thrown into the hall. This exploded, but only caused minor damage, some of which was still visible on the staircase until recently.

When the house was acquired by the French Embassy in 1968, the floors were lifted to install central heating, and a hiding place was found under the floor of the room which is now the Ambassador’s study. This contained a bayonet of French make, probably a souvenir kept by the sisters of their brother, who had been director of arms as well as treasurer of the early Volunteers. It would appear that the handle had been made in a local wood turnery to convert the bayonet into a sword.