# Rotunda Hospital

The Rotunda Hospital (Irish: Ospidéal an Rotunda; legally the Hospital for the Relief of Poor Lying-in Women, Dublin) is a maternity hospital on Parnell Street in Dublin, Ireland, now managed by RCSI Hospitals. The Rotunda entertainment buildings in Parnell Square are no longer part of the hospital complex.

## History

The hospital was founded by Bartholomew Mosse, a surgeon and midwife who was appalled at the conditions that pregnant women had to endure, in George's Lane in March 1745. It was granted by royal charter on 2 December 1756 by King George II. Lying-in is an archaic term for childbirth (referring to the month-long bed rest prescribed for postpartum confinement). The venture was very successful and Mosse raised money through concerts, exhibitions and even a lottery to establish larger premises.
The hospital moved to its current premises in 1757, designed by Richard Cassels, where it became known as "The New Lying-In Hospital". The Church of Ireland Chapel was opened in 1762. Open to the public, it provided a healthy income to the hospital annually, Dr. Mosse successfully encouraging wealthy Protestant Dubliners to attend service there.
Records indicate that around 1781, "when the hospital was imperfectly ventilated, every sixth child died within nine days after birth, of convulsive disease; and that after means of thorough ventilation had been adopted, the mortality of infants, within the same, in five succeeding years, was reduced to one in twenty". This issue was not limited to the Lying-In-Hospital. In that era, ventilation improvement was a general issue in patient care, along with other issues of sanitation and hygiene, and the conditions in which surgeons such as Robert Liston in Britain and elsewhere, had to operate. Florence Nightingale famously worked on the design of safe and healthy hospitals.
The first caesarean section in Ireland was undertaken at the hospital in 1889.
By 1993, the hospital was still functioning as a maternity hospital.

## Rotunda

The eponymous Rotunda, designed by James Ensor, was completed just in time for a reception hosted by James FitzGerald, Marquess of Kildare in October 1767. The extensive Rotunda Rooms, designed by Richard Johnston and built adjacent to the rotunda, were completed in 1791. By the early 19th century the hospital had become known as the Rotunda Hospital, after its most prominent architectural feature. The Rotunda became a theatre, where the Irish Volunteers' first public meeting was held in 1913, and later housed the Ambassador Cinema. The Rotunda Rooms now house the Gate Theatre.

## Architecture

Patrick Wyse Jackson, curator of the Geological Museum in Trinity College, assessed the building in 1993 as part of his book "The Building Stones of Dublin: A Walking Guide" with the following remarks:
    "The walls of the current building dating from 1757 are faced with Leinster granite and Kilgobbin granite... The former building was executed in Portland stone and Leinster granite, to which a sculptured frieze of ox heads and other panels were added. These are interesting as they are made of Coade stone, a fashionable artificial stone used widely in the late 1700s." The Rotunda or "round room", and the buildings now occupied by the Gate Theatre were later additions.

## Services

The Rotunda Hospital, as both a maternity hospital and also as a training centre (affiliated with Trinity College Dublin) is notable for having provided continuous service to mothers and babies since inception, making it the oldest continuously operating maternity hospital in the world. In 2025, the total number of babies born at the hospital increased to more than 900,000 since it opened its doors.

## Criticism

In 2000 the Rotunda Hospital was one of two Dublin maternity hospitals found to have illegally retained organ tissue from babies without parental consent. The tissue removed in post-mortem examinations was retained for some years. The Rotunda hospital admitted that permission should have been sought for this process to be allowed to take place.
A medical negligence award was approved in 2020 for a young boy who developed cerebral palsy as a result of complications with his delivery at the hospital in 2004.