Georgian Heritage Walking Trail of Dublin

Dublin Tourism Centre to Merrion Square Numbers 1-5

The tour begins at the Dublin Tourism Centre in the former St. Andrew's Church on Suffolk Street. R and L indicate features to be observed on your right and left as you proceed.

St. Andrew's Church, at the start of the tour, was built in 1866, the last in a series of churches on or near this site which in the seventeenth century was occupied by a bowling green. Its predecessor, known as the Round Church, was built between 1670 and 1674 to a design by William Dodson and rebuilt in 1800. With the decline of the congregation to a mere two parishioners, the present building was acquired by Dublin Tourism and in 1995 was splendidly converted into the company's central office, retaining the impressive spire and other fine architectural features. The Centre's numerous visitor facilities include tourist information and room reservations.

Walk along Suffolk Street and turn L. down Grafton Street to Trinity College.

The Bank of Ireland on the corner opposite Trinity was originally designed by Edward Lovett Pearce and built between 1729 and 1739 to house the Irish Parliament, being enlarged by the architect James Gandon and others later in the century. This building was the symbol of Ireland's Georgian era and the one in which it came to an end on the 2nd of August, 1800, when the Irish Parliament voted itself out of existence. The centre of power shifted to London and the age of prosperity went into decline. The building was acquired by the Bank of Ireland and opened as its headquarters in 1801. It may be visited during normal banking hours, when attendants are available to give free tours of the former House of Lords

Trinity College was founded by Elizabeth I in 1592 on the site of the Augustinian priory of All Hallows. Outside its magnificent 90-metre frontage (1752-1759, attributed to Theodore Jacobsen), on either side of the gate, are statues by Foley of two famous graduates - the orator Edmund Burke. (L. as you enter) and the playwright and poet Oliver Goldsmith (R), author of She Stoops to Conquer and The Deserted Village. It is of interest to note that both statues have identical legs.

Trinity, the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin, has over eight thousand students and was unusual in admitting women as students as early as 1903. Among other famous graduates are Dean Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker (creator of Dracula), Douglas Hyde, who was Ireland's first President, and Samuel Beckett.

Passing under the archway, enter the wide cobbled quadrangle called Parliament Square. Directly ahead is the imposing Campanile donated in 1853 by the Archbishop of Armagh, Lord Beresford. Beyond the Campanile, at the far end of the square, is a row of red brick buildings, the Rubrics, which date from 1700 and are the oldest surviving buildings in the College. The Examination Hall (R), built between 1779 and the mid 1780's, was designed by Sir William Chambers. The gilt oak chandelier hung formerly in the old Irish House of Commons in College Green.The impressive organ case, originally thought to have come from a Spanish ship, is now believed to have been built in Dublin in 1684 by Lancelot Pease, who also did work for King's College, Cambridge.

The only surviving example of Pease's work known anywhere, it is the oldest existing Irish made organ case and one of the most important in Britain and Ireland. The Chapel (L), designed by Chambers in 1798 to match the Examination Hall, features fine plasterwork by Michael Stapleton. It is the only chapel in the country which is shared by all the Christian denominations. Behind the Chapel is a tiny graveyard named Challoner's Corner (after Luke Challoner, who was buried there in 1613) which is reserved for the burials of Provosts of the College. Beside the Chapel is the Dining Hall, designed in 1743 by Richard Cassels.The building suffered badly from a fire in the early 1980s but has since been magnificently restored.

The Library (R), designed by Thomas Burgh and built between 1712-1732, contains the magnificent Long Room, the largest single chamber library in Europe, measuring 64 metres by 12.2 metres. Many of the books date from as early as the 16th century. On the ground floor is The Colonnades exhibition gallery displaying some the college's great treasures. The world famous Book of Kells, an 8th century illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels, is on display in a purpose-built Treasury, along with other early Christian manuscripts. Also on display is Ireland's oldest harp, dating from the 15th/16th century, made of willow with 29 strings.

Beyond the Rubrics is the New Square (built 1838-1844), containing the Printing House (L) with its elegant Doric portico, built in 1734, and the Museum building (R) designed by Deane and Woodward in 1853. There are interesting animal and plant carvings around the windows.

A multimedia audio-visual exhibition, telling the story of Dublin from its origins to the present day, is on display from May to September.

Return to the front gate and turn left back up to Grafton Street. The Provost's House (L) on the corner of Trinity College, built in 1760, is one the grandest of Dublin's Georgian mansions, with a coved ceiling in the salon which runs the entire length of the building. Among its more celebrated occupants were Dean Salmon and the great classical scholar John Pentland Mahaffy who befriended Oscar Wilde and Oliver Gogarty.

Turn L. into Nassau Street. The pub across the street from the corner of Trinity College was formerly the famous Jammet's Restaurant which flourished throughout the first half of this century.

Follow the wall and railings of Trinity College past the entrance to the new Arts Building. To the left is College Park with its playing fields and the cricket pitch from which a batsman once hit a six clear over the railings and through a window of the Kildare Street Club to the alarm of its venerable members. Tradition ascribes this feat to the great W.G. Grace. The first building in South Leinster Street, at the end of the railings, was once Finn's Hotel (the name is still visible on the gable wall), where James Joyce's wife Nora Barnacle worked as a chambermaid. Bear left into Lincoln Place. The Dental Hospital of Ireland (L) was established in 1879 and moved to Lincoln Place in 1895.

To the L. is Westland Row with Pearse Station, formerly known as Westland Row Station, the terminus for the first commuter train in the world, which made its maiden voyage from Dublin to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) on 17th December 1834. The first class fare was one shilling, second class passengers paid 8d and third class 6d. The railway was designed by William Dargan, Ireland's greatest railway builder and the organiser of the Dublin Exhibition in 1853.

No 21 Westland Row became the birthplace of Oscar Wilde on 16th October 1854. It is marked by a plaque. No 36 Westland Row, on the opposite side, built in 1771, has been the home since 1871 of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. The interior has fine plasterwork by Michael Stapleton and decoration in the manner of de Gree and Angelica Kaufmann.

Sweny's Pharmacy at 1 Lincoln Place (R) is where, in James Joyce's Ulysses, Leopold Bloom obtains the cake of lemon soap which travels with him for the rest of the day. The shop is still fitted as it was in 1904 and lemon soap remains available.

Turn R. towards

Merrion Square, which was planned in 1762 for Lord Fitzwilliam, is one of the finest squares in Dublin. The public park in the centre belonged for some time to the Church and was presented to Dublin Corporation by the Late Archbishop Dermot Ryan, after whom it is named. In the Great Famine of the 1840's soup kitchens were set up in the park to help alleviate the suffering. No 1 Merrion Square, the corner house (L) was the residence of Sir William Wilde, a prominent eye-surgeon and antiquarian, with his wife, the poetess `Speranza' and the childhood home of their son Oscar Wilde, the playwright.

Among other famous residents of the Square were: the jurist and writer Sir Jonah Barrington (No 42); the lawyer and politician Daniel O'Connell who secured Catholic emancipation in 1829 (No 58); the Victorian master of the Gothic novel, Sheridan Le Fanu (No 70), the sculptor Andrew O'Connor (No 77); the discoverer of wave mechanics and Nobel prizewinner for Physics, Erwin Schrodinger (No 65); and another Nobel prizewinner, the poet and playwright William Butler Yeats (No 82). Yeats' friend, the writer and painter George Russell (`AE'), worked at No 84 and the story goes that the two set out simultaneously to visit each together one day. Yeats' head was in the clouds, Russell's eyes were on the ground and the two passed without seeing each other. The National Gallery (R) was built from 1859-1864 to the design of Francis Fowke, with additions by Sir Thomas Deane, as a public testimonial to William Dargan (1799-1867), the designer of Ireland's railways and organiser of the Dublin Exhibition of 1853. This great exhibition was a display of Irish craft and industry of the time which was housed in a temporary crystal palace on Leinster Lawn. Dargan's statue stands outside. The playwright George Bernard Shaw, who bequeathed the royalties from his plays to the Gallery as an acknowledgement of its role in his education, is also commemorated by a statue. Another benefactor was Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, who in addition to establishing the Chester Beatty Library of Oriental Art, donated many works to the National Gallery. The Gallery has a fine collection in which the Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, English, Irish and Italian schools are well represented. Various lectures and exhibitions are held there throughout the year.

Opposite the Gallery, the Rutland Fountain (L) was designed in 1791 by H.A. Baker, a pupil of the great James Gandon. Leinster House (R) was designed by Richard Cassels in 1745 for the Earl of Kildare. At that time the north side of the city was the most fashionable area, and Lord Kildare's friends questioned the advisability of his building a town house in what was then almost open country. "Wherever I go", said the Earl knowingly, "they will follow". Within twenty years, the development of the square had proved him correct. The land to its north and east, however, remained relatively underdeveloped, and it was reported that in the high tides and floods of 1792, the Duke of Leinster succeeded in sailing a boat from Ringsend through a breach in the river wall and as far as the Holles Street corner of Merrion Square. The Fitzgerald family, who were Earls of Kildare and Dukes of Leinster, lived at Leinster House for nearly seventy years. One famous resident was Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the leader of the United Irishmen, who was fatally wounded while being arrested for his part in the 1798 rebellion. In 1814 Leinster House was acquired by the Royal Dublin Society, from whom it was bought by the Irish Government in 1925 to become the seat of the national parliament, Oireachtas na hÉireann. The Oireachtas consists of two chambers, the Dáil (lower house) and the Seanad (upper house or senate). The granite memorial outside on Leinster Lawn commemorates Arthur Griffith, Kevin O'Higgins and Michael Collins, who were among the founders of the modern Irish state.

Next to Leinster House is the Natural History Museum.The building was designed by Sir William Frederick Clarendon and opened to the public in 1857. Nicknamed the 'The Dead Zoo', it is a fascinating example of a Victorian-style museum which has never been modernised and is now a museum-piece itself. The collection includes hundreds of stuffed and imaginatively mounted animals, birds and insects - many of them hunting trophies - as well as giant deer (Irish Elk) skeletons and the fine Blaschka glass models of marine life.

Merrion Street continues up towards Baggot Street. No 24 is one of the several reputed birthplaces of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and the victor of the Battle of Waterloo. He gave his name to the popular wellington boot which is based on a style of boot that he wore.

Turn L. along

Merrion Square South. Plaques on several of the houses on this side commemorate famous residents. No 73 is the home of the Irish Architectural Archive with its unique collection of photographs and drawings of Irish buildings past and present. Note at this point the wonderful variety of door knockers and knobs, and the ornate coal cellar covers in the pavement, which may be seen from here on along this route. Ahead is a fine Georgian perspective looking along Upper Mount Street.

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Mount Street Upper to Fitzwilliam Place Numbers 6 - 10

A block of houses at the near end of the right hand side of the street have been restored by its owners, the Electricity Supply Board. Number 29 (the corner house on Fitzwilliam Street) has been refurbished from basement to attic with a collection of artefacts and works of art of the general period 1790-1820 to convey the atmosphere and appearance of a typical middle-class home of the time.

St. Stephen's Church, known because of its shape as the Peppercanister, was designed in 1824 by John Bowden in neo-classical style. Inside is a handsome canopied pulpit carved in Italian rosewood and walnut.

Continuing to the left of the church you will come to the Grand Canal. On this waterway, commenced in 1755, boats plied up and down the country carrying passengers and fragile cargoes such as pottery and glass which would not travel well on the roads of the time. Commercial traffic ceased in 1960 and the canal is now a quiet tree-lined haven away from the noise of the city. Beside the canal is a seat dedicated to the memory of the poet Patrick Kavanagh, who lived near here and wrote 'O commemorate me where there is water, canal water preferably...'.

As you return to Merrion Square you will see to the left of the Church a delightful sculpture by Derek Fitzsimons of a child swinging round a maypole.

Now continue to the corner of Merrion Square and turn L. into Lr. Fitzwilliam Street.

Fitzwilliam Street, together with Merrion Square East and Fitzwilliam Place, was formerly the longest complete Georgian thoroughfare in Europe until the 1960's, when a row of houses was replaced by a modern office block. Its classic vista can still be appreciated, stretching from Holles Street Hospital in the north towards the Dublin mountains in the south. Fitzwilliam House at No 6 was for some years the home of Margaret Burke Sheridan, the Irish prima donna famous for her renditions of Puccini's work. The old city gallows once stood at the intersection where Fitzwilliam Street crosses Baggot Street - a grisly interruption, no doubt, to the fine vista. Thomas Davis, the leader of the Young Ireland revolutionary movement in the 1840's, lived at No 67 Baggot Street. Further out of town on the other side of Baggot Street Bridge stood Baggotrath Castle, scene of a decisive battle in August 1649 when Royalist forces under the Marquess of Ormonde were defeated by Parliamentarian troops under Colonel Jones. This defeat, and the arrival of Cromwell two weeks later, put paid to Royalist hopes in Ireland.

From Fitzwilliam Street turn R. around Fitzwilliam Square. The earliest houses in the square date from as far back as 1714, but the ensemble was not completed until 1830. The square thus neatly spans the entire Georgian period from the accession of George I to the death of George IV. It was the last Georgian square to be completed and is of superb quality. Most of the houses have their original fanlights, some still with box shaped glass recesses in which a lamp would have been placed. Also worth observing are the door-knockers and the elaborate iron footscrapers. There are some examples of a simple security device in the form of a fan-shaped arrangement of spikes set into the wall beside a window to foil burglars. Sometimes a similar device was inserted inside the fanlight.

Fitzwilliam Square also displays a great range of ornamental iron balconies in a variety of styles.

The park in the centre of the square is private and is reserved for the use of the residents. The artist Mainie Jellett lived at No 36, on the west side and William Dargan, the railway designer, lived at No 2, on the east.

On the corner of the square as you return to Fitzwilliam Street is No 18, once the studio of the artist Jack B. Yeats, who was a brother of the poet W.B. Yeats.

The final stretch of the street is called Fitzwilliam Place. The geologist, Sir Richard Griffith lived here at No 2 and the naturalist, Robert Lloyd Praeger at No 19. No 28, with its curious neo-gothic design, was the city home of Edward Martyn, the playwright who was a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.

At the corner turn right.

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Leeson Street to St. Stephen's Green Numbers 11-19

Saint Stephen's Green. The central park of St. Stephen's Green (R) is one of three ancient commons in the city. The area was levelled and walled in 1678 and a ditch dug round it. The four sides, each a quarter of a mile in length, were known as Leeson's Walk (S), French Walk (W), Beaux' Walk (N) and Monks's Walk (E). There was no overall plan to the buildings as there was in the Fitzwilliam developments, and the Green is notable for the variety in age and style of its houses. The south and west sides were the earliest built and the soonest replaced. The park had by the end of 1814 deteriorated to such a state that the Corporation allowed the residents of the Green to rent it and take over its maintenance. The present railings were then erected, together with the series of granite bollards (originally linked by iron chains) around the outside.

Further improvement took place inside and the park remained private until 1880 when Sir Arthur Guinness, Lord Ardilaun, bought out the lease, had the present lake and gardens laid out, and opened the park to the public. One of the more unusual aspects of the park is a garden for the blind near the centre with a curved seat commemorating Louie Bennett and Helen Chenevix. The scented plants, which can withstand handling, are labelled in Braille. There is a Yeats memorial garden with a sculpture by Henry Moore, a bust of James Joyce facing his former university at Newman House, a memorial to the Fenian leader Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa near the Grafton Street corner, and a group representing the Three Fates inside the Leeson Street gate, a gift from the German people in thanks for Irish help to refugees after World War II. The Merrion Row corner features a bronze statue of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the nationalist leader of 1798, and a memorial to the great famine of 1845-1850.

Saint Stephen's Green South. Iveagh House (L) comprises Nos 80 and 81. No 80 was originally built in 1736 as a town mansion for Robert Clayton, Bishop of Cork and Ross. It was acquired in 1856 by Benjamin Lee Guinness (father of Lord Ardilaun) who amalgamated it with the adjoining house, No 81, to build the present Iveagh House.

In 1939 the second Earl of Iveagh presented it to the Government and it now houses the Department of Foreign Affairs. It has a magnificent interior but is not open to the public

Nos 85 and 86 together are known as Newman House (L), home of the Catholic University (later University College) which was founded in 1850 with Dr. (later Cardinal) John Henry Newman as its rector. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was a lecturer here. No 85 is among the oldest surviving houses on this side of the Green and contains excellent plasterwork by the Lafranchini brothers. No 86 was built in 1765 by Richard Cassels for Richard 'Burnchapel' Whaley, of whose son, the notorious 'Buck' Whaley, many tales are told, one of the more correct ones being that he walked to Jerusalem and back for a bet. The lion over the door is by Van Nost and the marvellous plasterwork is by Robert West. Newman House has recently been finely restored and is open from June to September. Among the rooms of note are the splendid saloon and the Apollo room, the Bishops' room in No 86 and Hopkins' study upstairs.

Next door is the University Church, designed by Deane and Woodward and built in 1856. The interior is Byzantine in character with an Irish marble pulpit and organ choir.

On the pavement opposite Newman House (R) is a seat dedicated to James Joyce, one of the University's more famous students, and his father.

Turn right into

Saint Stephen's Green West. The Unitarian Church (L) (1863), now surrounded by modern offices, has fine examples of French, English and Flemish stained glass.

120 St. Stephen's Green is the only house on the Green in continuous private ownership.

Inside the railings of the park (R) is a seated statue of Lord Ardilaun, facing the direction of the Guinness brewery, the source of his wealth. Further along is a statue of Robert Emmet standing opposite his birthplace (now demolished) at No 124. Emmet was executed in 1803 after leading a short-lived rising in Dublin.

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, halfway along this side of the Green (L), was originally designed in 1806 by Edward Parke, but twenty years later was redesigned and extended by William Murray (whose son designed the College of Physicians in Kildare Street). Figures representing Medicine and Health stand above the pediment. The College Hall contains excellent wood panelling and the boardroom has a fine plasterwork ceiling. In the Easter Rising of 1916 the college was occupied by rebel troops under Countess Markievicz. There was fierce fighting here and at the Shelbourne Hotel, and bullet-scars can still be seen on the columns.

On your left a new shopping centre occupies the site of the old Dandelion Market where U2, now one of the world's most famous rock bands, started their career as buskers.

Turn right into St. Stephen's Green North passing Grafton Street on the left.

On the corner of the Green is Fusiliers' Arch, a memorial in the style of a Roman triumphal arch built to commemorate soldiers in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who were killed in the Boer War at the turn of the century.

This corner of the Green is notable for the fine buildings of clubs and societies -the Stephen's Green Club at No 8, the United Service Club at No 9, the University and Kildare Street Club at No 17, and the former Friendly Brothers House at No 22 with its elegant roofed balcony. Further along on this side is the Shelbourne Hotel (1867) with its striking figures of Nubian princesses and their slaves. The hotel saw action in the 1916 Rising, and it was here that the constitution of the Irish Free State was drafted.

Opposite Dawson Street is a stone drinking fountain presented by Lady Laura Grattan in 1880 to Dublin Corporation.

Turn left into

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Dawson Street to Kildare Street Numbers 20-27

The Mansion House (R) was built in 1710 for Joshua Dawson, after whom this street was named, and was purchased from him in 1715 by Dublin Corporation to become the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The Lord Mayor as Dublin's first citizen presides over many of the committees that are responsible for the formation of policy and welfare in the city, and also receives visiting dignitaries and groups. It is interesting to note that Dublin had a Mansion House before London acquired one. The Round Room to the left was built in 1821 for a reception for George IV, and saw the first assembly of Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament, on 21 January, 1919, when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. It is now mainly used for receptions and exhibitions.

At No 19 (R) is the Royal Irish Academy, founded in May 1785 by the Royal Dublin Society. Housed in this building since 1852 is the Academy's world famous library of Irish manuscripts, among the most precious of which is the Psalter of Saint Columcille, an incomplete copy of the Vulgate version of the Psalms. The RIA is the country's leading learned society and has numbered many outstanding scholars in its membership. The President's chair was formerly the Lord Chancellor's throne in the Irish House of Lords; the chandelier once hung in the Hall of Requests, and some of the benches from the Lords and Commons are also here. There is a manuscript on exhibition every week.

St. Ann's Church (R) was built in 1720 to the design of Isaac Wills; the present handsome façade, however, dates from 1868 when it was rebuilt by Deane and Woodward. Lord Newtown left a bequest in 1723 to the church to buy bread for the poor, and a special shelf erected beside the altar for this bread may still be seen today. The tradition continues to this day although the value of the original bequest is now negligible. The Church is not open on Saturdays.

Turn right into

Molesworth Street. Although some of the best houses in this street (formerly known as Molesworth Fields) have gone to be replaced by office blocks, three fine examples of gabled style houses remain. These Huguenot houses, popularly known as 'Dutch Billies' were built in 1736 and 1755 in a style which was popular in Dublin from 1680 to 1760, featuring massive chimneys and corner fireplaces.

Along picturesque Molesworth Place (R) may be glimpsed a view of the Round Room of the Mansion House.

Just beyond South Frederick Street (L) is a plaque in the pavement bearing a quotation from James Joyce's Ulysses. It is one of a series of fourteen, designed by Robin Buick in 1988, which trace the route of Leopold Bloom in the lunch-time section of the book from Abbey Street to the gate of the National Museum.

Molesworth Street is notable for its salesrooms of fine art and antiques, which can always be admired even if you can't afford to buy.

The Freemasons' Hall (L), with its pillared front, has been the home since 1865 of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons in Ireland, which was established in 1725 and is the second oldest Grand Lodge in the world. The austere exterior conceals the extraordinary details inside. Four major rooms are on view, each designed in a different style: Classical; ancient Egyptian; medieval Gothic and Tudor. There is also a museum with a permanent display on the history of the Order.

Turn left into

Kildare Street. The approach from Molesworth Street leads to the townhouse front of Leinster House with its lovely gates, flanked by the matching rotundas of the National Museum (R) and National Library (L). Originally the whole group was owned by the Royal Dublin Society and the central courtyard was open. Admission to Leinster House is through introduction by a member of the Dáil. The National Museum was built between 1884 and 1890, as was the National Library opposite, to the design of Sir Thomas Deane, the younger (whose father, also Thomas Deane, was Woodward's partner). It has an excellent collection of Celtic antiquities and artefacts from the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, together with a vast range of fascinating items excavated from Viking sites in central Dublin. The Treasury houses a permanent exhibition of the greatest treasures of early Irish art, including the Ardagh and Derrynaflan Chalices,the Cross of Cong,the Tara Brooch, the Clonmacnois Crozier, ST Patrick's Bell and other pieces. Opposite the Museum, on the other side of Kildare Street, a plaque marks a former residence of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula at No 30.

The National Library houses a vast collection of books, magazines, newspapers, manuscripts, maps and photographs originally built up by the Royal Dublin Society. Exhibitions are mounted in the entrance hall. The novelist Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan (1783-1859), lived at No 35 (now No 39) Kildare Street (L). She gave lavish soirees and musical evenings at which Thomas Moore and the violinist Paganini were among the guests.

The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (R) occupies the original site of the Kildare Street Club which was destroyed by fire in 1860. The present college building, which was completed in 1864, was designed by William Murray (whose father designed the College of Surgeons' building in St Stephen's Green), and retains its original plaster work, as well as some fine portraits and statues. The library, established in 1713 on the bequest of Sir Patrick Dunn, is one of the best historical medical libraries in Ireland and includes many volumes dating from the sixteenth century. The college is not open to the public except by arrangement with the Secretary.

The Kildare Street Club building (R) was designed in 1861 by Deane and Woodward in a Venetian style to replace the previous premises further up the street. The Club was originally founded in 1782 as a polite alternative to the notorious Daly's Club, then the most luxurious in Dublin. The magnificent interior has not survived but the intricate and witty carvings of animals by Charles Harrison around the window ledges are worth noting. The Club has since moved to St. Stephens Green and the building is now occupied by the Alliance Français and the National Genealogical Office (open Monday-Friday).

From the bottom of Kildare Street, Nassau Street leads back to the starting point of the tour.

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