The General Post Office was the stronghold of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, and bullet holes still scar its façade. The inside was gutted during the fight but rebuilt and reopened in 1929, more than a century after it was first built by Francis Johnson. The restored marbled interior is now among its attractions along with three statues by John Smyth, a fine bronze by Oliver Sheppard, commemorating the failed Rising, and the original copy of the Proclamation of Independence kept in the philatelic office.
