Royal Hibernian Military School

[1] The buildings housing the school were erected in 1771 in the Phoenix Park, overlooking the village of Chapelizod in the Liffey valley (in full view of the Wicklow mountains).

By this stage the school was not only an orphanage; for instance, the Army Non-Commissioned Officer father of Liam Mellows entered him there to get a good basic military training which he hoped would lead to an army career, instead it was used during the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence, both in fighting and in training the flying columns in guerrilla warfare.

[2] Many of the school's pupils carried acts of gallantry in the wars that the British Army was involved in.

One such individual was Frederick Jeremiah Edwards who was awarded the Victoria Cross for extraordinary bravery in the First World War.

[4] Many of the school's original buildings remain and form a large part of St Mary's Hospital,[5] Phoenix Park.