Origins
The building that was to become Government Buildings was the last major public building built under British rule in Ireland. The foundation stone for the building was laid by King Edward VII in 1904. It was built on the site of a row of Georgian houses that were being controversially demolished one by one as the new building was erected. The building itself was designed by Sir Aston Webb, a British architect who was later to redesign the facade of Buckingham Palace. The final completed building was opened by King George V in 1911.
It may have been intended for use by the Royal College of Science, but it soon attracted the attention of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland's Dublin Castle administration. It was chosen to be the location for the first meeting of the new Parliament of Southern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, in June 1921. The planned State Opening of Parliament proved a fiasco, as only four members of the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and a minority of members of the Senate of Southern Ireland turned up. The Houses were adjourned sine die (although under the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 14 January 1922 “a meeting of members of the Parliament elected for constituencies in Southern Ireland” met to ratify the Treaty).
With the coming into existence of the Irish Free State in December 1922 Leinster House, the headquarters of the Royal Dublin Society, located next door to the Royal College of Science, became the provisional seat of the Free State's parliament, Oireachtas of Saorstát Éireann. The Executive Council of the Irish Free State immediately commandeered part of the college as temporary office space. Two years later the Free State decided to buy Leinster House outright from the RDS. Government usage of part of the Royal College of Science also became permanent.
Read more about this topic: Government Buildings
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