Over three days, RCSI will run nine historic public tours of the College on St Stephen's Green as part of National Heritage Week 2015, this August.

Three tours of the College, all of which will be followed by an RCSI Heritage Collections Exhibition, will take place each day Monday 24, Tuesday 25 and Wednesday, 26 August, and are completely free of charge to the public.

During the tours and exhibition, guests will learn about the rich heritage and history of RCSI, which was established in 1784 and has been on St Stephen's Green since 1810. Attendees will also learn the part the College has played in both local and national history, including when the building was seized by rebels of the 1916 Easter Rising led by Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz. Tours of RCSI will be guided by Bryan Sheils (Front of House Manger, RCSI) and Frank Donegan (Head Porter, RCSI).

At stages along the way of the tour, a range of real medical instruments, artefacts, photos and documents from the RCSI Heritage Collections will be on display. The tour will conclude with RCSI's Archivist, Meadhbh Murphy hosting an exhibition where she will speak about these collections called ‘Dublin in the Rare Auld Times'. Here members of the public can find out about what living conditions were like for Dubliners a century ago as well as what instruments were being used to carry out surgical procedures at the time. From these historic tours, guests will be able to get a unique insight into life in Dublin one hundred years ago, against the backdrop to the 1916 Rising which was about to transpire the following year.

The tours will begin at 11am, 2pm and 6pm on each of the three days from 24-26 August and the meeting point is the entrance at 123 St Stephen's Green. All registered guests are asked to gather 15 minutes before the tours commence.

All events for National Heritage Week 2015 at RCSI are free of charge to the public but registration is essential due to limited capacity. Places are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first served basis.

All of the tours of RCSI are run in conjunction with National Heritage Week, an annual programme of over 1,500 events which take place during the last week of August each year. National Heritage Week 2015 is organised by the Heritage Council and will run from the 22-30th August.