[4][5] The hospital was built as a home for retired soldiers of the Irish Army by Sir William Robinson, Surveyor General for James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, between 1679 and 1687 on what was then a portion of the Phoenix Park.

[6] Colonel John Jeffreys of Brecon, an old Welsh soldier who had served the Crown loyally during the English Civil War, was appointed the first Master, at a salary of £300 per annum.

The hospital got off to a bad start financially: from a petition presented by Jeffreys to King James II in 1686, it seems that most of the original sources of funding had dried up.

[8] Along with Les Invalides, it served as the model for the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, begun the next year under the guidance of Christopher Wren.

Festival such as Forbidden Fruit and acts such as Blur, Damien Rice, Tame Impala, Kodaline and Patti Smith have played there.