History of Wynns Hotel Dublin City Centre

Wynn's Hotel has been in existence in one form or another since 1845 and has witnessed many of the events which have shaped the history of Dublin City. The plaque, which may be seen in the main lounge of the hotel, commerates an event which had a decisive effect on the history. of Ireland in this century - the decision to establish Oglaigh na hEireann - the Irish Volunteers'.

In January 1913, the British House of Lords had rejected a Bill which proposed Home Rule for Ireland. Nevertheless, it seemed that the agitation for Home Rule which had begun forty years earlier must soon bear fruit. Those in the North who were bitterly opposed to any weakening of the 'Union of Great Britian and Ireland' had established an armed force - 'The Ulster Volunteers', and were threatening rebellion if an all-Ireland Government were set up in Dublin. Nationalists began to realise the need for action to defend their rights.

A newspaper commentary on the political situation in Ireland by Professor Eoin Mac Neill of University College Dublin, himself an Ulsterman, was rejected by many as a call to arms. The suggestion that Mac Neill should take the lead in the establishment of an Irish Volunteer force is said to have been made by a Belfast Quaker, Bulmer Hobson. Hobson, a political journalist working in Dublin, was the local head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood - a secret organisation which aimed at the establishment of an Irish Republic. The O'Rahilly, a man of independent means, who was very active in the Gaelic League, after discussions with Mac Neill and Hobson, invited a small group to meet in WYlm's Hotel on 11th of Novem-ber 1913. At the meeting, under Mac Neill's chairmanship, it was decided to establish an Irish Volunteer force. Of the small group who attended, four died as a result of 1916 - Pearse, Ceannt, Mac Diarmada and The O'Rahilly. Though he did not become a member of the Provisional Com-mittee in 1913, Sir Roger Casement was one of those who inspired Eoin Mac Neill at this time. Within a few hours of the holding of the meeting in Wynn's, detectives from Dublin Castle called on the manager of the hotel to warn him not to allow further meetings of this kind on the premises. This warning seems to have been ignored. A provisional committee repre-sentative of all degrees of nationalist opinion was established immediately. The committee met in Wynn's Hotel on a number of occasions to plan the public inaugeration of the 'Irish Volunteers', whose aim it would be "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties of all the people of Ireland." On the 25th of November, 1913, Ireland's modern army was established by acclamation at a huge public meeting in the Rotunda Rink which stood in the grounds now occupied by The Garden of