The Four Courts

Ireland’s main court building contains the Supreme Court, High Court, Central Criminal Court and Dublin Circuit Court — four of them, just like it says on the tin.
Designed by James Gandon, the building was completed in 1796 and its green dome held aloft by marble pillars is one of Dublin’s most familiar landmarks.
Each court has a public area where you can sit and watch trials taking place, but you have to be very quiet or the judge will take offence and have you thrown out and/​or arrested if you are particularly boisterous. This is purely a spectator sport — don’t be tempted to chip in with your opinion, they hate that.

James Gandon certainly had more than a passing influence on Irish architecture… not only did he design the Four Courts, but much of the Bank of Ireland/​Irish Parliament on College Green, and of course the Custom House. And the similarity is not to be missed. All are beautifully-​designed buildings, domed and majestic. And the Four Courts are no different. Located, like its sister, on the northern banks of the Liffey, it still remains home to the High, Supreme, Central Criminal and Dublin Circuit Courts to which it lends its name. It is a central feature in both modern and historical Ireland, currently as the seat of the most powerful courts in the land, and previously as a rebel stronghold in 1916 before being burned during the tragedy that was the Civil War. Of course, like all other buildings involved in 1916, the bullet holes in the exterior have been preserved. Though why we revere the mother of all cock-​ups as our common national uprising is still one of the perfectly Irish eccentricities. We couldn’t even do Pearse’s ‘blood sacrifice’ right… typical!!!
But the Four Courts are somewhere everyone should see… if only to catch a glimpse of the most recent drugs baron to grace it with their presence…

How could you not give a building that was started in 1776, completed in 1796 and didn’t fall prey to the great development boom of the recent Celtic Tiger anything less than 5 stars.
The ghost of Gina past haunts these halls. Back in the day, I worked as a law clerk in Dublin and randomly wandered the halls of this grand old building day after day for about two years. While I would normally enter through the side door and into the back of the building to the Barrister’s offices, occasionally, illusions of grandeur would overcome me and I would stroll through the grand front entrance hall under the Rotunda, my briefcase full of mundane papers (along the line of you owe me you wanker and you better pay up). And me… small and wan and countrified, dodging the swishing black cloaks and pompous white curled wigs of the brightest barrister minds of Irish law as they talked in hushed whispers with their anxious clients as they walk purposely through the halls of this magnificent building.
Magnificent in its history of not only being a participant in the 1916 Rising, but also the scene of a great travesty in Irish records history in 1922 when toward the end of a takeover by Republican forces opposed to the newly formed Irish government and its alliance with Britain, the entire public records department encompassing a thousand years or more of historical documents was destroyed. (He said, she said kind of blame thing still going on there).
As you walk up (and you will, because Dublin is a walking city)…take a wee bit of time to see the bullet holes which were deliberately left in its façade as a reminder to people of the past events that have taken place in this historical monument. The seizure in 1916 by Commandant Ned Daly’s 1^st Battalion during the Easter Rising and the aforementioned occupation by rebel forces in 1922.
Walk inside the grand rotunda and inhale the oldness. Sneak your way into any of the in session civil law cases and try to make head or tail of what is going on.
And afterwards… make your way across the bridge and sneak a pint at the more ancient Brazen Head pub.