Rossa Bridge

Green River, originally uploaded by David G Kelly.

O'Donovan Rossa Bridge is a gree river and The Four Courts along the River Liffey quayside in Dublin.

The Four Courts is Ireland's main courts building and was built between 1796 and 1802 by renowned architect James Gandon, who built The Custom House.

The Four Courts were seized by Commandant Ned Daly's 1st Battalion during the Easter Rising in 1916. They survived the bombardment by British artillery that destroyed large parts of the city centre, however in 1922 they were gutted as part of the Irish Civil War. Republican rebels led by Rory O'Connor who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, seized the building. The new Irish government under the Chairman of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, Michael Collins was forced to attack the building to dislodge the rebels provoking a week of fighting in Dublin. In the process of the bombardment the historic building was destroyed. Most dramatically however, when the anti-Treaty contingent were surrendering, the west wing of the building was obliterated in huge explosion, destroying the Irish Public Records Office which was located at the rear of the building. It has been alleged that the Republicans deliberately boobytrapped its priceless Irish archives, which were stored in the basement of the Four Courts. Nearly one thousand years of irreplaceable archives were destroyed by this act. However, the insurgents, who included future Irish Taoiseach Sean Lemass denied this accusation and argued that while they had used the archive as a store of their ammunition, they had not deliberately mined it. They suggest that that the explosion was caused by the accidental detonation of their ammunition store during the fighting.

Its exterior still shows the effects of the events of 1922, with its facade containing bullet holes, which deliberately were not removed to remind people of its complex history.