Four Courts

This guide to Dublin's Four Courts centers on the opening battle of the 1922 Civil War, when the new Irish government's army turned its guns on Anti-Treaty fighters holed up inside since April, led by a rebel named Rory O'Connor. It follows what that siege meant for the Public Record Office tucked behind the courts, a treasury of Ireland's paper history stretching back to the 1300s, and the reconstruction that gave Dublin the domed building standing here today. Look up at the dome James Gandon first raised two centuries ago.