To celebrate Culture Night 2021, Grangegorman Histories presents ‘Timepiece’ a podcast exploring the history of the unique turret clock in the Clocktower Building at Grangegorman on the northside of Dublin city. This James Waugh clock was installed in 1818 and it is the oldest known flat-bed clock in the world. While the function of the Clocktower building has evolved over the past 200 years from its original purpose as the Richmond Penitentiary and later Grangegorman Female Prison and Transportation depot, where at least 3,200 women and girls were held before their transportation to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), several periods of use as a fever and cholera hospital and finally annexed to the then Richmond District Lunatic Asylum in 1897, the unique timepiece atop this historical structure has remained a constant.

Join Megan Brien, historian of design and interior architecture, with horologists David Boles and Julian Cosby to learn more about turret clocks and the extraordinary features of this historic timepiece. What were turret clocks and why were so important?

Grangegorman Histories is a public history project of Dublin City Council, Grangegorman Development Agency, HSE, Local Communities, National Archives, Royal Irish Academy and TU Dublin. The Grangegorman site is currently being redeveloped as a health and education campus for the HSE, TU Dublin and the local community.