Kilmainham’s Soldier Hospital
The calendar of 1684 needs to be handled with some care. Older chronologies give 25 March as the completion date of the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham. Other institutional and architectural evidence shows a longer process: the hospital was chartered on 19 February 1684, its governors first met on 21 March, pensioners were admitted during the year, and work on parts of the complex, including its chapel, continued afterwards. The firm conclusion is therefore not that every element of the great building was finished on one spring day, but that 1684 marked its formal establishment and the beginning of its active life as an institution for old and disabled soldiers.