The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street, Dublin and its first residents (1720-1780)

Abstract

In the early years of the 1730s two major building projects were taking place in Dublin city, one in the public sphere, the other in the domestic arena. Both stood as very visible manifestations of the wealth and ambition of Ireland’s governing elite. Both looked to the latest imported architectural models and fashionable tastes of London’s beau monde and both involved the same close knit group of architects, builders, developers and occupants. The first of these was Edward Lovett Pearce’s Parliament House at College Green, a pioneering and virtuoso exercise in neo-Palladian design, the other, Luke Gardiner’s similarly pioneering domestic development at Henrietta Street – palatial scale pieds-à-terre built to house the most influential power brokers from church, military and state. These lofty dwelling houses were more than bricks and mortar, more than the judicious disposition of rooms, a finely finished facade or an elegant interior: they served as symbols of success and social status, as spaces for living in and the settings for life. Looking behind the red-brick facades of these once grand Georgian town houses at the people who populated these spaces we can still catch a glimpse of life when Henrietta Street was the best address in town.