Oxmantown’s Blue-Coat Opening
The word “hospital” did not chiefly mean a place of medical treatment in the modern sense. The new foundation was intended as a charitable home and free school for poor children, modelled in part on English urban charities. Its establishment had taken years. Dublin’s civic elite, churchmen and officials had raised subscriptions from the later 1660s, and the building was nearing completion early in 1674. Earlier plans were ambitious: accommodation was envisaged for as many as 350 residents. The opening intake of sixty therefore reveals both a real achievement and the limits imposed by money, building costs and the practical task of maintaining children as well as teaching them.