customhouse

It's called "The Post Office, Belfast" in a similar Eblana shot.

Whereas Lawrence names it the Customs House. Streetview

Designed by Sir Charles Lanyon (1813-1889), 1856. www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/lanyon/24.html

Flickr is sometimes amazing - in 2010 via winninator

The stairs and door to the right should give a clue to the date: "The entrance to the post office at the south elevation was removed in 1872. This had been a triple-arched stepped entrance (see image gallery below) but was replaced with a new entrance to the west of the south block. This new entrance was short lived and was removed in 1886." From here. I think this is the 1872-1886 version (west of the south block).

I see the loopline bridge, they are on the quays at the Custom House in Dublin. Streetview of the steps. The date range is off - the Clarecastle was built in 1914 and bought by Gunness in 1915 : Clyde ships page. Date is before 1953 when the Clarecastle was sold again.

All the boys are wearing shoes, which also suggests a later date range. I think some of them are fishing with bits of string. They have a big empty tin can to put their catch into.

Flickr is sometimes amazing and the NLI is always amazing - we have visited those steps before -

A wonderful looking image.

It looks like the boys are Crabbing. A ball of string or a sock is the bait on a line.

National Army armoured car at Henry Street
near Nelson’s Pillar during the Battle of Dublin
in late June/early July 1922.
Attached to the car is an effigy of anti-Treaty IRA leader
Rory O’Connor, reading derisively ‘Rory Boy’. The British
army gave thirteen of these rolls royce armoured cars to
the Provisional Government in early 1922. Impervious
to small-arms fire, they carried a Vickers machine gun
in a rotating turret. Soldiers named them after songs,
patriotic heroes or separatist victories. In the case of this
armoured car, the name ‘Customs House’ celebrates the
burning of that structure by the IRA’s Dublin Brigade in
May 1921, an operation many National Army officers
had participated in.

theirishrevolution.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/U8.-TY-U...

The ARR known as the The Customs House, named due to the IRA attack on the building during the War of Independence. The figure on top has a noose around its neck and bears a placard entitled “Rory Boy” after Rory O’Connor, an Irregular leader captured during the first few weeks fighting

Certainly, the Irregulars had nothing to match them. Crewed by three soldiers, with a top speed of 45mph and armed with a .303 Vickers machine gun on a rotating turret, the ARR’s played a vital part in the opening stages of the war, whether it was supporting infantry, providing generals with mobile-command centres, or spearheading frontal assaults.

These ARR’s included such notable examples as The Customs House (pictured above), from which General Seamus Hogan led the Dublin Guards on their assault on the village of Bruree during the Battle of Killmallock, or the Ex-Mutineer, captured from the Irregulars during the first week of fighting and which subsequently spearheaded the seaborne landings on the Irregular stronghold of Kerry.

www.quora.com/How-were-armored-cars-used-during-the-Irish...

The internet's full of this stuff - looks like it's a famous enough photo.

Seems to have been replaced with an Opel now: www.google.ie/maps/@53.3497326,-6.2607722,2a,75y,76.57h,9...

Patrick J. "Specky" Griffin on the right, according to www.customhousecommemoration.com/2018/03/18/who-was-speck...