During our short visit to Dublin, we ventured into Phoenix Park which to our surprise covered 1,760 acres and is home to a herd of wild Fallow deer since the seventeenth century. Whilst there we took a look at the old Magazine Battery, the Dublin magazine fort was built in 1735. The fort can be found in the west of Dublin city, north of the River Liffey. The building is located in the south-eastern part of the park, close by a wooded ridge. It has a commanding view of the surrounding area. During the British occupation of the area, the Fort had been seen as a symbol of that occupation but by 1939 its purpose was to house the Irish Army's stocks of guns and ammunition. The magazine fort seems to serve no useful purpose, the jingle by Jonathan Swift (1667 to 1745, Author of Gulliver's Travels etc ) proclaims: "Now's here's a proof of Irish sense, Here Irish wit is seen, When nothing's left that's worth defence, We build a Magazine."

During the Easter Rising of 1916, thirty members of the Irish Volunteers and Fianna Eireann captured the Magazine Fort. They took guns and withdrew, after setting fires to blow up the magazine's ordinance; but the fuses burned out before reaching the ammunition and little damage was caused. On the 23rd December 1939, the remnants of the IRA stole a large quantity of the Irish Army's reserve ammunition from its dump at the Magazine Fort in Dublin's Phoenix Park known as the Christmas Raid. While this was seen as an embarrassment for the Irish Army, most of it was recovered. The site is no longer accessible.