Category: featured

This plaque marks the original site of the Rotunda Hospital, founded in South Great George’s Street, then called ‘George’s Lane’, in 1745 by Bartholomew Mosse.

The site is now 60 South Great George’s Street and is occupied by Decwell’s hardware.

The ‘Rotunda’, Ireland’s first dedicated maternity hospital, or ‘lying-in hospital’, remained on the site until 1757, when it relocated to Rutland [now Parnell] Square.

Bartholomew Mosse established the original hospital on South Great George’s Street in response to high maternal and infant mortality rates in the 18th century. Driven by a vision to create a safe space where women of all backgrounds could access childbirth services, Mosse’s ‘lying-in hospital’ became a pioneering haven of care.

In 1757, the hospital moved to a larger, purpose-built facility on Parnell Square, where it continues to serve Dublin’s families and stands as a beacon of progress in maternal health.

The plaque was unveiled by the Lord Mayor, and the Master of the Rotunda, on 1 November 2024.

This plaque, at 10 Molesworth Street, commemorates physician and philanthropist Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw (1839-1900), who lived on the site from 1861 to 1881.

The plaque replaces a missing Dublin Tourism plaque and was unveiled on 16 November 2024.

Born near Belfast in 1839, Grimshaw was educated at Trinity College, the Royal College of Surgeons, and Dr Steevens’ Hospital, where he was appointed professor of botany at the age of 23.

Going on to work in the Cork Street Fever Hospital, the Coombe Lying-In Hospital, and the Dublin Orthopaedic Hospital, he kept up his involvement with Dr Steevens’ hospital, where he was elected professor of medicine in 1878.

Throughout his career he was interested in public health and statistics, and he was appointed Registrar General of Ireland in 1879.

Grimshaw served as president of the Statistical Society of Ireland in 1888–90 and as president of the Royal College of Physicians in 1895–6.

You can read more about Thomas Henry Grimshaw at the Dictionary of Irish Biography.