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A Hearty Walk: Love From Your Library, Friday 14th February

For the love-ly day that is in it, Sarah Timmins from RCSI Library's Heritage Collections team has curated a 'hearty' 10 minute walk in the streets around RCSI, taking in the medical, romantic and macabre!

Our curated tour route to get your heart racing this Valentine's Day!

The historical front of RCSI on St. Stephen's Green today
and as it was originally built in the early 19th century.
1. Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland - 123 St, Stephen's Green
The historic RCSI Building on St. Stephen's Green, the 'heart' of medical and surgical education and training since the late 18th century. As you stroll past the building, get some inspiration from Instruments & Innovations, an exploration of 10 medical innovations developed by RCSI figures. Or read about the preservation of the RCSI Charter - the founding document of the College from 1784.

Walk down from RCSI towards St. Stephen's Green shopping centre and take a left to get a great view of the old Mercer Hospital straight in front of you. 

2. Mercer's Medical Centre - 2 Stephen Street Lower
Formerly the Mercer Hospital, there has been a medical connection to this Dublin site since medieval times treating leprosy patients in 1394 to educating RCSI students since it was partially converted into the new library building in 1991, opened by Ireland's first female president, Mary Robinson.
Today the building houses Mercer's Medical Centre as well as teaching and research facilities for RCSI and the Library's Heritage Collections.
Remember to look up and see the carved stone inscription 'Mercers Charitable Hospital'.

Continue along Stephen Street Lower, turn left onto Aungier Street and walk towards Whitefriar Street Church on the right hand side.

 3. Whitefriar Street Church - 56 Aungier Street
This church lies in the heart (see what I did there) of this old medical Dublin enclave, and has a historical connection with Valentine, started in 1836 when Irish Carmelite John Spratt, returned from Rome with gift from Pope Gregory XVI which contained the remains of Saint Valentine.

Saint Valentine was a Roman priest and physican who suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Christians by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus about 270 AD. The story of a medical miracle goes that Saint Valentine signed a letter "From your Valentine" to his jailer's daughter, who he had befriended, and the tears she cried healed her from blindness.
The Shrine of Saint Valentine in Whitefriar Street Church.
Right beside the Whitefriar Street Church you will see the beautiful red brick Avalon House.
1882, Certificates for Anatomy with Discetions and Systemic Anatomy; the cert behind is an RCSI Cert from 1885, signed by Charles Cameron, President of RCSI, RCSI Heritage Collections. 

4. Avalon House/'Starbucks' - 55 Aungier Street

This building has a 'Dissecting Room' complete with stone floor channel for washing and flushing out...dissecting room waste! Built in 1879, the Carmichael College of Medicine operated (a-hem) here until 1889 when it amalgamated, along with the Ledwich as the last private schools, with the College of Surgeons.

Take the road between Whitefriar Street Church and Avalon House onto Whitefriar Place which brings you along the side of the church building. Turn left onto Whitefriar Street and then right onto Peter Street. 

 5. Adelaide Chambers - Peter Street 

Certificate for attendance at lectures on the practice of Medicine, 1830-1839, RCSI Heritage Collections.
Kirby's School of Medicine moved in 1809, its very first year, from Stephen Street to 28 Peter Street. Kirby was known to shoot bullets into propped up dead bodies in class for students to train for surgery on the battlefield. The school closed in 1832 and the Ledwich School of Medicine (of famed Ledwich's Anatomy textbook) opened here in 1836. The current name of Adelaide Chambers is a nod to its later incarnation as the Adelaide Hospital, which initially had opened around the corner on Bride Street as a hospital for Protestants only.
From a Certificate in Practical Surgery awarded in 1888, RCSI Heritage Collections.
RCSI Heritage Collections holds certificates from many of Dublin's private medical colleges, often including beautiful illustrations of their medical buildings.

1844 Certificates from the Peter Street Dublin School of Medicine for attendance in lectures in Anatomy and Physiology, RCSI Heritage Collections. 

Well done on completing this 'hearty' walk, you got your heart-rate up on Valentine's Day!

Medical Dublin: A Historical Walking Tour
If this taster has whet your appetite for more street stories of Dublin's medical history, watch out for the outputs of a project between RCSI Heritage Collections & RCSI Medical Student Dabhóg Boyle, completed as part of the Research Summer School 2019. This project aims to uncover the distinctive medical history of Dublin via the creation of the first Medical History Walking Tour of the city. Through a tour on the streets of Dublin, over two centuries of the city’s outstanding contribution to the medical and surgical world is unveiled, using the streetscape, historical figures and thematic stops to illuminate the story. The final result of this project will be a unique resource for connecting the medical history of Dublin to the urban landscape. Students, citizens and visitors can discover the people and places who best represent the city’s medical history and legacy.