Mr. Waffle and I visited 11 North Great George’s Street which is open to the public at odd hours for tax reasons. It was a bit of a pain to arrange but I can truly recommend it. The owner has been there 30 years and the house is obviously an (ongoing) labour of love. When he bought it water was streaming down the walls as the roof was largely gone and he has been painstakingly restoring it ever since. He was fascinating about the history of the street and Georgian Dublin.
We also went to visit the Tenement Museum on Henrietta Street with the children. I absolutely applaud this as an initiative and think it is a great idea. However, fresh from our tour of number 11, the information seemed a bit basic (though good for tourists at whom it was aimed) and the house a bit spartan. Obviously, it’s a tenement museum so I suppose that was inevitable. We may have had the experience ruined by going there before it opened for immersive theatre experiences which were reasonably successful (one on the 1913 lock out, one on the tenements) and the children felt that they had had enough experience of Henrietta Street, thanks all the same. Still, well worth a visit, if you haven’t been there before.
