Save for the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, the barracks is the earliest public building in Dublin, and was built from 1701 by the then Surveyor General under Queen Anne, Thomas de Burgh [REF].
The oldest inhabited barracks in Europe[REF] (and once one of largest), it was originally known simply as the Barracks and later the Royal Barracks, and a mainstay of British forces on the island for several hundred years.