As part of the TY History Tour, students visited the final resting place of Theobald Wolfe Tone at Bodenstown, Co. Kildare. Standing beside the modest grave of the ‘Father of Irish Republicanism’, they reflected on the ideals of liberty and unity that shaped Tone’s vision for an inclusive Irish republic. A site of pilgrimage since the 1840s, it remains a powerful reminder of how ideas can endure even when revolutions do not.
The tour continued to Dublin’s Custom House, where students explored its 18th-century architecture and rich historical layers. They examined the scars of the 1921 IRA attack still visible in the form of blackened pillars. Students learned how the city’s marshlands were drained in the 1780s to construct this neoclassical masterpiece and studied the intricate stonework representing Ireland’s great rivers. These sculptures captured how the Custom House symbolised colonial power and Ireland’s key trade networks before becoming a stage for the War of Independence.
Together, both visits offered students a vivid, place-based encounter with Ireland’s revolutionary past – one shaped by both visionaries and conflict, protest and public architecture.
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