Overview
McKee Barracks () is a military installation situated on Blackhorse Avenue near Phoenix Park in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland.
History
Known first as Grangegorman Barracks, taking its name from the historical civil parish in which it was situated, this was the last permanent barracks built in Dublin and was erected between 1888 and 1892. The choice of site was made on account of its proximity to the railway (by which troops could be transported anywhere in Ireland), excellent access to the sea / Dublin Port via the North Circular Road, and the training facilities for men and war horses. The barracks was later named Marlborough Barracks after John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. While the facility was considered small compared to other cavalry barracks, it was said to be of ample size for a cavalry regiment of full war strength of 862 men (all ranks) and stabling for as many horses. On 15 October 1891 the headquarters of the 10th Hussars was moved there under Major Manners-Wood (commanding).
It was from Marlborough Barracks that the 6th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, made up of squadrons of the 5th Lancers and 12th Lancers, rode down what is now O'Connell Street in Easter 1916 and came under fire from the GPO, and beat a hasty retreat after encountering the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army who had taken over the building. McKee Barracks is now an administrative centre where various Directors of Corps are based, as well as the location of the Irish Army Equitation School. In 2016, the barracks were used to depict the main entrance to Broadmoor Asylum for the film The Professor and the Madman, while an area of the Equitation School doubled as the Oxford railway station. In 2020, as part of the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a Defence Forces joint task force was established in McKee Barracks.
The joint task force was involved in co-ordinating the Defence Forces supports during the response to COVID-19, with the priority on supports to the HSE.
Architecture
The plans were prepared by the Royal Engineers' Department, under the direction of architect Major Robert Barklie RE, Larne, County Antrim. The style of the officers' mess is a mixture of Elizabethan and Queen Anne styles, and the general appearance of its red brick and red roof tiles, with "traceried windows, floriated pinnacles, parapets and panelled battlements", (quoting Lt. Col. MacNeill's description in his Cosantoir account of the building of the barracks), are described as being in a "broad Romantic style", but not in any specific national style or idiom. The men's billets are in a "robust Tudor style".
See also
* List of Irish military installations
Further reading
* O'Donnell, Patrick Denis. Short Histories of Irish Barracks (Collins Barracks, Clancy Barracks, Griffith Barracks, McKee Barracks, Keogh Barracks, Aiken Barracks, Mellowes Barracks), in An Cosantóir (Journal of the Irish Defence Forces), 1969–1973.