The Female Orphan House was founded as a home for Protestant orphan girls in 1790 in Prussia Street, Dublin. The premises there was simply known as The Orphan House, and the first residents (female only explaining why it is variously also known as the Female Orphan House) arrived in 1791. The premises moved from 42 Prussia Street to the North Circular Road in Cabra, Dublin, in 1795, and it was incorporated as a charity in 1800. In November 1791 the Governors of The Orphan House had invited the Revd Walter Blake Kirwan to preach the first fund-raising charity sermon. He was a renowned preacher, and his fund-raising sermons would continue raising significant revenue for the House, and eventually inspiring the changing of the name of the home to Kirwan House. During the 1940s there was an amalgamation of the Kirwan House charity with a school for orphans called the Pleasants’ School. The school was the successor of the Pleasants' Asylum in Lower Camden Street, Dublin which had been founded in 1818 as an orphanage for Protestant girls under the terms of the will of Thomas Pleasants. In 1949 the Pleasants School closed and its endowments were transferred to Kirwan House.