Kirwan House

[2] "Destitute Girls" (whose both parents were deceased) were placed in the home, and were instructed in the Protestant faith[3] and were trained to be domestic servants.

The Female Orphan House was founded by Mrs. Ann Tighe and Mrs. Margaret Este (who died in 1791 and was succeeded by Elizabeth La Touche)[4][5] initially in a small property at 42 Prussia Street in Stoneybatter.

[6] In 1792, the architect Whitmore Davis was engaged by the banker John LaTouche to design a building to be constructed on land owned by Charles Stanley Monck, Esq and named Kirwan House after the Dean of Killala, Walter Blake Kirwan, who preached sermons regarding the establishment of such an institution and was responsible for raising the majority of the funds.

[citation needed] The chapel contained fine stained glass dedicated to the LaTouche family.

The king ordered shirts from the orphanage produced by the orphans' needlework, and he presented 100 wooden bedsteads to the home.

For a time some land in the Phoenix Park was allocated to the home to provide cattle for the production of milk.

[20] A Brief Record of The Female Orphan House, North Circular Road, Dublin, For over one hundred years, from 1790 to 1892 was printed in 1893 about the orphanage.

In 1959 the home moved to 134 Sandford Road, Ranelagh which itself was sold in 1987, and funds put into the Kirwan House Trust.

A tombstone was erected following donations in 1859 on a plot in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, where orphans who died were interred in without their names.