St Stephen's Green and Fusiliers' Arch

In front of you is Fusiliers' Arch, the main entrance to St Stephen's Green. Until 1663 this was a marshy common on the edge of Dublin, where cattle were grazed. That year the Corporation enclosed the centre, sold off the plots around it and, in 1664, built a wall. For two centuries the park was only for residents who had a key.

1A Guinness gift

Sir Arthur Edward Guinness, later Lord Ardilaun, pushed through an Act in 1877 to open it to the public and paid for its present layout. It reopened to everyone on 27 July 1880. His seated statue is on the west side.

2A controversial arch

The arch was put up in 1907 to commemorate the soldiers of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who died in the Boer War in South Africa. The names of 222 of the dead are carved on its underside. To nationalists, who saw that war as an imperial adventure, it became ‘Traitors' Gate’.

During the 1916 Rising, both sides paused their firing so the park keeper could feed the ducks.

In 1916 some two hundred rebels of the Irish Citizen Army, with Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz, dug trenches in the park. British soldiers fired down on them from the Shelbourne Hotel, and the rebels had to fall back to the Royal College of Surgeons.

3What to look for

• The bullet marks from 1916 on the stone of the arch.
• The names carved beneath the arch.
• The lake and its ducks, a few steps from the entrance.