Courtney McGrailJ. Anthony Gaughan
The GPO is the nerve centre of our postal system. That system can be traced back to the political and military turmoil of the 16th and 17th centuries when communication became vital to the English policy of aggrandisement in Ireland. Then in the 1640s, Evan Vaughan, the postmaster in Dublin, established a staging system along the three main roads out of Dublin, to the south, the west and the north.
Cromwell, aware of the military importance of communications, outlawed private postal services and set up a state monopoly which remains to the present day. A Penny Post service was established in Dublin in 1773 and mail coaches to serve the rest of the country were introduced in 1789.
Independence
Following legislative independence, in 1782 an independent Irish Post Office was set up in 1784 which lasted until 1831. With Irish independence in 1922, responsibility for the post office was transferred to the new Department of Posts and Telegraphs.
The location of the post office in Dublin was in High Street in 1668, later in Fishamble Street and eventually on a site now occupied by the Central Bank. In 1814 an act was passed to have a new post office built. This commission was given to Francis Johnston, architect to the Office of Board of Works. The new post office was open for business in 1818. The author takes the reader on a tour of its architectural features. Ironically the extensive renovation of this building was completed just months before the Easer Rising.
Ferguson provides profiles of the senior officials in the GPO. For nearly 50 years it was managed by Sir John Lees and his son, Sir Edward. By placing relations and friends in various GPO jobs Sir John was able to thwart efforts of the postmaster in London to introduce a system of transparency and accountability. The senior officials resided in the GPO. Mrs Anne Draper, the GPO’s housekeeper, was described as “comely and gay”. By virtue of her ambiguous relationship with Sir John, it seems she exercised considerable influence well beyond the domain of house-keeping. William Lawrence came to the GPO from Wales and was described as clerk of works. He was the father of William Mervin Lawrence, born in the GPO on July 5, 1840, and the person to whom we are indebted for the Lawrence photographs in the National Library.
For most Irish people, mention of the GPO conjures up the Easter Rising. People are familiar with the account of Pearse and Connolly leading their comrades into the GPO to begin the rebellion. As the author states, the choice of the GPO as the centre of the rising in Dublin and beyond was the result of astute military planning. Apart from the defensible structure of the building, the rebels appreciated the importance of communications and the role played by the GPO in the control of mails and the telegraph and telephone lines. Ferguson records the courage of Fr John Flanagan, from the nearby Pro-Cathedral, who under fire delivered a general absolution on the roof of the GPO and was in one of the last groups to evacuate the blazing building with the wounded.
The present GPO, whose re-construction was completed in 1933 under the supervision of TJ Byrne, has been a favourite focal point for celebrations and commemorations, especially by groups with conflicting claims to the mantle of Pearse and Connolly. The novelist Anthony Trollope was a major figure in the GPO from 1841 to 1859. Appropriately he features in the postal museum and exhibition Letters, lives and liberty now located off the main office.