Dating from the 1720s, Henrietta Street in Dublin’s North inner city is the most intact collection of early to mid-18th century aristocratic townhouses in Ireland. These vast houses were divided into tenements from the 1870s to the 1890s to house the city’s working poor.

Built as a townhouse for the members of Dublin’s ruling elite, 14 Henrietta Street was divided into 19 tenement flats in 1877, with some 100 people living under its roof by 1911. It remained a tenement house until the last families left in the late 1970s.

14 Henrietta Street tells the story of the building’s shifting fortunes, from family home and power base to courthouse; from barracks to its final incarnation as a tenement. The stories of the house and street mirror the story of Dublin and her citizens.

14 Henrietta Street seeks to help visitors deepen their understanding of the history of urban life and housing in Ireland, through people and memory. Taking the stories, personal experiences and objects of former residents of the tenements, coupled with new ongoing social and architectural history research, the Museum gathers, interprets and preserves Dublin’s tenement history.

Why tenement living developed in Dublin – After the Acts of Union were passed in Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, all power shifted to London and most politically and socially significant residents were drawn from Georgian Dublin to Regency London. Dublin and Ireland entered a period of economic decline, exacerbated by the return of soldiers and sailors at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The rise of the cotton mills of Lancashire had a negative impact on the Irish poplin industry.

For a time, Henrietta Street was occupied by lawyers. Dublin’s population swelled by about 36,000 in the years after the Great Famine, and taking advantage of the rising demand for cheap housing for the poor, landlords and their agents began to carve their Georgian townhouses into multiple dwellings for the city’s new residents.

Houses such as 14 Henrietta Street underwent significant change in use – from having been a single-family house with specific areas for masters, mistresses, servants, and children, they were now filled with families (often one family to a room,  the room itself divided up into two or three smaller rooms – a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom). Entire families crammed into small living spaces and shared an outside tap and lavatory with dozens of others in the same building.

For the safety of visitors, groups must be small, with no more that 15 on a tour at a time. Tour Guides accompany you through three floors of the house and its many stories, told through the walls of the house itself, recreated immersive rooms, sound and film.

As the building dates from the late 1720s with minimal intervention in the structure, some spaces are small and the steps of the original back stairs are uneven and steep. It’s advised that you wear comfortable shoes, and perhaps dress in layers, as parts of the house can be a little cold.

14 Henrietta Street recognised in European and Irish awards – The conservation of a  former tenement house at 14 Henrietta Street in Dublin’s north inner city was named Best Conservation/Restoration Project, and won the Special RIAI Jury Award at the prestigious annual RIAI Irish Architecture Awards. The museum also won the Silletto Trust Prize at the 2020 European Museum of the Year Awards.

Also of interest is the “Georgian Dublin Outdoor Walking Tour: Henrietta Street and Beyond”. This consists of a walk through Georgian Dublin, courtesy of the award-winning museum 14 Henrietta Street.

The tour begins on Henrietta Street, the first Georgian street in Dublin and the template from which all other Georgian streets followed. The tour charts the fortunes of the Gardiner Estate on Dublin’s Northside, stretching from Henrietta Street to Mountjoy Square, from its beginnings as the best address in town to its decline to tenement housing. It’s a story that mirrors the fortunes of Dublin City and many of its residents.

Visitors will learn about the man who built Henrietta Street, the ‘Jewel in the Georgian Crown’, the lavish lifestyles and social lives of families who lived there, including the Molesworths from number 14, and how one man’s vision and ingenuity created the world’s first maternity hospital.

2021 marked the 300 year anniversary of Henrietta Street, with the Gardiner family purchasing the land in 1721 and the development of the street starting soon after. The building of Henrietta Street marked the beginning of the golden age of Georgian Dublin when the cityscape was transformed into the one we see today. Taking visitors to some of Dublin’s most elite addresses and grand Georgian squares, the tour will explore the architectural and social history of the city and reveal the details of the lives lived behind the elegant red brick facades.

Opening Hours:
Wed to Sun: 10am – 4pm
Tours of the house run on the hour, starting at 10am.
Pre-booking is essential, guided tour only.

Georgian Dublin Outdoor Walking Tours run Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 11.30am and 2pm. House tour and walking tour require separate bookings, but are discounted if booked at the same time.

There are frequent talks and culture nights scheduled outside normal opening hours.
Check here to see what’s on, or to book the regular tours.

Contact & Pricing:
14henriettastreet.ie
[email protected]
Tel: 01 524 0383
14 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1
Adults €10; concessions

(Featured photo by Ross Kavanagh)

Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe and its history is relevant to some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland’s emergence as a modern nation from the 1780’s to the 1920’s. Attractions at this splendidly atmospheric site include a major exhibition detailing the political and penal history of the prison and its restoration. The tour of the prison (which is outstanding) includes an audio-visual show.

When the Gaol was first built, public hangings took place at the front of the Gaol. There was no segregation of prisoners; men, women and children were incarcerated up to five in each cell, with only a single candle for light and heat, most of their time being spent in the cold and the dark. The cells were roughly 28 square meters in size.

Children were sometimes arrested for petty theft, the youngest said to be a seven year-old child, while many of the adult prisoners were transported to Australia. Remarkably, for an age that prided itself on a protective attitude for the ‘weaker sex’, the conditions for women prisoners were worse than for men. An official 1809 report  observed that male prisoners were supplied with iron bedsteads while females ‘lay on straw on the flags in the cells and common halls.’ Half a century later there was little improvement.

Between 1796 and 1924, Kilmainham Gaol was a place where, apart from Daniel O’Connell and Michael Collins, every significant Irish nationalist leader of both the constitutional and physical force traditions was incarcerated. Thus, its history as an institution is intimately linked with the story of the Irish nationalism.

The majority of the Irish leaders in the rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916 were imprisoned there. It also housed prisoners during the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and many of the anti-treaty forces during the civil war period. Charles Stewart Parnell was imprisoned here, along with most of his parliamentary colleagues, when he signed the Kilmainham Treaty with William Gladstone.

Kilmainham Gaol was decommissioned as a prison by the Irish Free State government in 1924. Seen principally as a symbol of oppression, there was no interest in its preservation as a monument to the struggle for national independence. The jail’s potential function as a focus for national memory was complicated by the fact that the first four republican prisoners executed by the Free State government during the Irish Civil War were shot in the prison yard.

The site now houses a museum on the history of Irish nationalism and offers excellent guided tours of the building. An art gallery on the top floor exhibits paintings, sculptures and jewellery of prisoners incarcerated in prisons all over contemporary Ireland.

[Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information]

The main exhibition at Kilmainham Gaol Museum tells the story of the social and political history of the prison. Three main themes are explored on the different levels of the exhibition space: the social history of Kilmainham Gaol and Irish prisons in the 1800s, the history of Irish nationalism and republicanism, 1796-1924, and the restoration of Kilmainham Gaol in the 1960s.

The ground floor exhibition tells the story of Kilmainham from the perspective of the ordinary prisoner. A prison register for the Gaol shows the crimes for which men, women and children were imprisoned, ranging from violent assault to stealing apples from an orchard. Visitors can see the small wooden box used by convict John Sheahan to carry his possessions to Australia in 1842. A Victorian-era Gandolfi camera, used to capture prisoner ‘mugshots’, is also on display.

Rebellion, nationalism and the path to independence are the themes of the exhibition on the first floor, which deals with Irish political history from the 1798 rebellion up until the end of the Irish Civil War in 1924. Objects on display include Robert Emmet’s proclamation of a provisional government of Ireland in 1803, the last letter written by Charles Stewart Parnell and scapulars taken from the body of Michael Collins following his assassination in 1922.

The ‘Last Words’ section displays the last letters and personal belongings of the fourteen leaders of the Easter Rising executed at Kilmainham Gaol in May 1916. The final floor of the exhibition tells the extraordinary story of a group of volunteers who rescued Kilmainham Gaol from near ruin in the 1960s and restored it.

Opening Hours:
Open 7 days: 9.30am – 5.15pm.
The Gaol is accessed by guided tour only with a maximum of 35 people per tour. During peak tourist seasons the venue is often fully booked, and cannot accommodate walk-ins. Pre-booking of tickets is essential to gain access at your chosen day and time.
Closed 24 – 27 December.

Contact & Pricing:
kilmainhamgaolmuseum.ie
[email protected]
Tel: 01 453 5984
Adults €8 (online price); concessions