Select Image To Visit The Photo Gallery: The Rotunda 1913 Memorial

Photographed By William Murphy

The Rotunda 1913 Memorial

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THIS IS NOT A 1916 MEMORIAL

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Walk past the Ambassador Theatre on Parnell Square, and you might easily miss a modest limestone plinth standing in the shadow of the trees. If you check Google Maps, you might see it labelled as a "1916 Memorial". Even passing tour guides often lump it in with the revolutionary fervour of the Easter Rising.

But look closer. Peer through the scrawls of graffiti that often mar its surface, and you will see the date clearly cast in copper: 25 Samhain 1913.

This is not a memorial to the Rising itself, but to the spark that ignited the army which fought it.

The Birth of Óglaigh na hÉireann This marker stands on the site of the old Rotunda Rink, a temporary building that once occupied the Rotunda Gardens. It was here, on 25 November 1913, that Óglaigh na hÉireann (The Irish Volunteers) was founded.

The atmosphere in Dublin that November was electric. Just days earlier, on 19 November, James Larkin and James Connolly had established the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) to protect striking workers from police brutality during the Lockout. However, the meeting at the Rotunda Rink on the 25th was a different beast.

Responding to Eoin MacNeill’s article ‘The North Began’ (published in the Gaelic League paper An Claidheamh Soluis), 4,000 men packed into the Rink to form a national defence force. The ranks were a broad church, including members of the Gaelic League, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Sinn Féin and, secretly, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

A House Divided It is a historical irony that many who joined that night did not end up fighting in Dublin in 1916. By the outbreak of WWI, the movement had split. The vast majority, renaming themselves the National Volunteers under John Redmond, enlisted to fight in the Great War in Europe.

A smaller faction—retaining the name Irish Volunteers and led by men like Patrick Pearse and Eoin MacNeill—stayed behind. It was this group, eventually joining forces with Connolly’s Citizen Army, that marched out during Easter 1916.

Why the Confusion? Why do internet listings and casual observers so frequently mislabel this as a 1916 memorial?

The confusion likely stems from the name itself. Óglaigh na hÉireann became the definitive title for the Irish revolutionary forces. In the public consciousness, the "Volunteers" are synonymous with the GPO and the Rising. The year 1913 is the prologue, but 1916 is the story everyone remembers. Furthermore, its location—just a stone's throw from the Garden of Remembrance—naturally leads people to associate everything in the vicinity with the Easter Rising.

A Magnet for Defacement Sadly, the memorial is frequently defaced, as seen in recent photographs. The copper plaque often bears the scratches of tags, and the limestone is often scrawled with marker.

Whether this is politically motivated or simply opportunistic vandalism is difficult to say. The title Óglaigh na hÉireann is complex; it is the official Irish name of the modern Irish Defence Forces, but it is also claimed by the IRA and various dissident republican groups. In a city where history is written on the walls, ambiguous titles can unfortunately attract angry ink. Alternatively, its low height and location on a busy pedestrian thoroughfare may simply make it an easy target for anti-social behaviour.

Regardless of the vandalism, the stone remains. It is a stubborn reminder that before the Rising, there was the gathering. Before the battle, there was the Rotunda Rink.

Questions And Answers

1. Can you determine why many accounts describe it as a 1916 memorial when it is not? There are three main reasons for this persistent error:

The "Victor's History": The events of Easter Week 1916 completely overshadowed the events of 1913. In the narrative of Irish freedom, 1916 is the "Brand Name." When people see a memorial to "The Volunteers" (the main force of 1916), they mentally auto-correct the date to the main event.

The Garden of Remembrance: The memorial is located almost immediately adjacent to the Garden of Remembrance, the primary state memorial to those who died for Irish freedom (heavily stylised around 1916). Tourists and locals blurring the two sites together is a natural geographic error.

Google Maps User Data: Google Maps listings are often created or edited by users ("Local Guides"). Once a user incorrectly tags a spot as "1916 Memorial," that label sticks until the owner or a consensus of users fixes it. It becomes a self-perpetuating error.

2. Is there any evidence that it attracts a greater than normal amount of defacing graffiti? While there are no official "vandalism statistics" published for specific statues, observational evidence suggests this specific memorial is targeted more frequently than plinths of similar size (like the statues in O'Connell Street which are on higher pedestals).

Physical Vulnerability: The design is the primary culprit. It is a large, flat, blank slate at waist-height right next to a footpath. It invites tagging in a way that a high statue or a complex sculpture does not.

Political Ambiguity: As already mentioned, the term Óglaigh na hÉireann is highly contented. To a modern Anarchist or Socialist, it might represent the State/Army/Police. To a Unionist, it represents the IRA. To a Dissident Republican, it might represent the "Free State" army (viewed as traitors). It is a term that manages to annoy the fringes of almost every political spectrum in Ireland, making it a "lightning rod" for political graffiti, alongside the standard "tagging" by youths.