General Post Office (GPO)

This is where modern Ireland was born. On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, Patrick Pearse walked out the front door of the General Post Office and read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to a mostly bewildered crowd of shoppers. Then he walked back inside, and for the next six days, a few hundred poorly armed rebels held this building as their headquarters against the full might of the British Army.

The GPO was a deliberate choice. Built between 1814 and 1818 at a cost of up to £80,000, it was the most visible symbol of British administrative power on Dublin's widest street. Its Ionic portico — six massive columns topped by statues of Hibernia, Mercury, and Fidelity — faced directly down Sackville Street. Seizing it was as much a symbolic act as a military one. The rebels knew they couldn't win. They wanted to make a statement, and they made one that echoed for a century.

By the time the rebels surrendered, the GPO was a gutted shell. British artillery and incendiary shells had reduced the interior to charcoal and rubble. The building was rebuilt by the new Irish government and reopened in 1929, but they kept the bullet-scarred columns as a reminder. Run your fingers along the Portland stone and you can still feel the pockmarks.

Today it still functions as a working post office — you can buy stamps ten feet from where the Republic was declared. The GPO Museum in the basement uses interactive exhibits to walk you through the Rising hour by hour. It's one of the rare places where a building is simultaneously a national shrine and a place where you can mail a postcard.