A hostel should be more than a B&B...The Morning Star Hostel for Homeless Men.

The Morning Star Hostel was opened for homeless men by the Legion of Mary on the 25th of March 1927. The hostel caters for homeless men who are 18 years old or more. The building itself is known to have existed since 1780 or so and is believed to have been originally built as a house of charity for the poor at the time. Frank Duff, founder of the Legion, was a civil servant before Ireland got its independence in 1926 and he knew Willam Cosgrave the minister for local Goverment who gave him the hostel which had been used as an army barracks prior to Irish Independence by the Black and Tans British soldiers.

In those early years there was great poverty in Dublin and the hostel used to house over 200 homeless men a night. Homeless people in Dublin at the time could only stay for two weeks in the other hostels that were available.

At the time the hostel would have had four large dormitories filled with beds lining the walls on the left and on the right. The survival of the Hostel is a miracle when we stop to realise that the hostel has been operated since 1927 on the sole reliance of volunteer Legionaries and has catered for so many homeless men in Dublin all that time.

There has always been some permanent indoor brothers who have helped to keep it going but the day to day running of the hostel relies heavily on the usual Legionaries who go to their meeting once a week and do their two hours legion work in the hostel.