Seeing the bones of the oldest intact house/dwelling place in the city is an extraordinary experience. The Yelp Elite Open House tour of 9/9a Aungier Street started at the Chester Beatty Library to give us a visual overview of the masterplan. Aungier Street is apparently the oldest planned street in the city, ending at the now-vanished St George's Church which faced Dame Street. We 'processed' out the back of the Castle, as one does, along Stephen Street, where in some waste ground, the medieval ditch of Dublin is still apparently visible. How cool is that? It reminds how every corner of Dublin has a history, sometimes several histories.
The Central Dairy shop on Stephen Street, which used to be a defunct newsagents, now hosts a lovely designer shop on the ground floor, and the upper floors are being restored. I think it's amazing to be able to see an old house stripped back to the bare essentials. The tour of 9/9a was the highlight, the guides from Open House had their work cut out for them getting people to move on the next part of the tour, so fascinating was each room. Such a privilege to be shown around by people whose knowledge is driven by a passion for Dublin's history which I suspect in neither profitable nor popular. I hope the Open House event this year (17-19 October) is a success and is a showcase for the great work that's being done by the Irish Architecture Foundation.
A big thank you to Emily for organising this event. Another quirky idea from the ever-creative Yelp CM! read more