Overview
Until 1965 the Georgian Mile was reckoned the longest unbroken stretch of Georgian houses in Europe: a near-mile of matching brick running from Fitzwilliam Place up through Fitzwilliam Square and along Fitzwilliam Street to Merrion Square East. Then the ESB knocked 16 of them on Lower Fitzwilliam Street to build an office block, and the record went with them. The gap is still there, and the argument about it never really stopped.
What holds the eye is the uniformity. The houses were built to a strict code between the 1780s and the 1830s: three storeys and a half over a basement, the same sash-window proportions, the same fanlight over the same granite steps. Dublin has grander single buildings, but nowhere else does it hold a single idea for this long. Be warned, though, that this is a walk for the eye rather than a day out. For most of the year there is nothing to go inside – the squares are locked, and behind those doors are solicitors, consultants and offices, not open rooms.
Walking the route
Start at the St Stephen’s Green Luas stop and head south-east into Fitzwilliam Place, where the brickwork and granite settle into a steady rhythm. A short way on you reach the Pepper Canister – properly St Stephen’s Church on Mount Street Crescent, built in 1824 in a plain Greek Revival style and better known to most Dubliners from the U2 video for The Sweetest Thing, filmed on its steps.
From there the route runs on to Fitzwilliam Square, the last and smallest of Dublin’s five Georgian squares. Its central garden is privately owned by the surrounding residents and stays behind railings all year – except on Bloomsday, 16 June, when it opens to the public and you can walk the original layout. If you can only time your visit for one date, that is the one. Carry on north along Fitzwilliam Street to Merrion Square East, and you have walked the length of it.
History and architecture
The development began with the Fitzwilliam estate, which laid out its land east of St Stephen’s Green to a single plan and enforced it lot by lot. Uniform height, uniform windows, uniform doors: buyers took a plot and built to the template. The brick was fired locally and the granite for the steps and sills came from the estate’s own ground, which is part of why the terraces read as one continuous surface rather than a row of individual houses.
That completeness is exactly what made 1965 so contentious. The demolition of the 16 houses on Lower Fitzwilliam Street to make way for the ESB’s headquarters drew years of conservationist anger, and the replacement – a low 1970s block finished in 1978 – was disliked almost from the day it opened. It was itself torn down and rebuilt in 2022, this time by Grafton Architects, to sit more quietly against the surviving terraces. Dublin’s Georgian core has since been floated as a candidate for World Heritage status, a measure of how the argument has swung the other way.
Worth a look
- The Pepper Canister – the 1824 church closing the vista down Mount Street; a working concert venue as well as a landmark.
- Fitzwilliam Square – the smallest of the five squares, and the only garden that opens to the public, one day a year on Bloomsday.
- Merrion Square – at the north end, a full public park ringed by townhouses, with the Oscar Wilde statue in the corner and the National Gallery and Natural History Museum a minute’s walk off.
Practical information
- Getting there – the Luas Green Line stops at St Stephen’s Green, at the southern end of the Mile. Several Dublin Bus routes run along Leeson Street and Baggot Street.
- Parking – on-street parking is limited and heavily restricted; the St Stephen’s Green car park is the more reliable option.
- Accessibility – the footpaths are level, but the granite steps up to most front doors make individual houses awkward for wheelchair users; the walk itself is done entirely from the pavement.
- Food and drink – Baggot Street, a block east, is the nearest run of cafés and restaurants for a coffee at the end.
Give it an hour at a slow pace, and if you have any choice in the matter come on 16 June: it is the one day the square gardens open, and the only chance to stand inside the thing rather than beside it.