Overview
Before planning a visit, know that the building is shut. The Hugh Lane closed on 28 September 2025 for a refurbishment expected to run until 2028, so there is nothing to walk into right now. When open, it is Dublin’s municipal gallery of modern and contemporary art, in Charlemont House on Parnell Square, free to enter and wheelchair-accessible. For now the collection lives online, through virtual tours and digital events.
History
Sir Hugh Lane opened the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art on Harcourt Street on 20 January 1908, the first public gallery in these islands devoted to modern art. Lane drowned aboard the RMS Lusitania in 1915, and his collection became the subject of a long legal fight between Dublin and London. A 1959 compromise rotated the paintings between the two cities; a 1993 agreement fixed 31 of the 39 works permanently in Dublin. The gallery moved to Charlemont House in 1933.
Charlemont House was built around 1763 for James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont – a key political figure who presided over the 1783 Volunteer Convention, a step toward Irish legislative independence. He commissioned Scottish architect Sir William Chambers to design a city residence that doubled as a private museum for his collection of art, books, and antiquities. Chambers delivered a five-bay limestone block set slightly back from Parnell Square, with a central lantern-lit vestibule, a curved Portland-stone staircase, and a long gallery for paintings. Caulfeild’s cultural patronage also extended to the Casino at Marino, another Chambers design. Financial pressure eventually forced the family to sell; in 1870 the Irish government purchased the property for the General Register and Census Offices. When the gallery moved in in 1933, architect Horace O’Rourke converted the rear garden into enfilade galleries while preserving Chambers’ interior character. Gilroy McMahon Architects added a further extension in 2006, and in 2001 the gallery rebuilt Francis Bacon’s London studio on-site.
Collection
- The Lane Bequest – Impressionist works by Manet, Monet, Degas, Pissarro and Morisot, the core of the permanent holdings.
- The Francis Bacon Studio – Bacon’s London studio, dismantled in 1998 and reassembled in Charlemont House. It is protected on-site through the refurbishment and viewable via the online virtual tours.
- The Harry Clarke stained-glass room – built around Clarke’s The Eve of Saint Agnes, by Ireland’s foremost stained-glass artist.
- The Sean Scully room – devoted to the abstract painter, with its climate control and lighting being upgraded.
- Contemporary Irish art – including Ailbhe Ní Bhriain and Brian Maguire.
If you can only know one thing about the place, it is the Bacon studio: the actual contents of the room he worked in, dust and all, lifted from London and put back together here.
Recent and upcoming exhibitions
- More Power to You: Sarah Purser – A Force for Irish Art (Dec 2024 – Jan 2025) – on the painter, collector and founder of the An Túr Gloine stained-glass collective.
- Brian Maguire: La Grande Illusion (Jan 2025) – politically charged paintings and installations.
- Lawrence Abu Hamdan – Walled Unwalled (Oct 2024) – an audio-investigation into memory and law.
- Artist Film Screenings with Light House Cinema (Feb 2026) – a quarterly programme curated by Alice Butler.
- Sean Scully Retrospective – planned for 2027–2028, after the refurbishment.
Refurbishment
The closure runs alongside the building of a new Dublin City Library on Parnell Square. The work covers:
- renovation of the 1930s wing to meet security, environmental and accessibility standards;
- a climate-controlled link between the gallery and the new library;
- roof replacement, new lighting and upgraded electrics;
- on-site preservation of the Francis Bacon Studio throughout.
While closed, the Hugh Lane Trust keeps running an online collection of high-resolution images and catalogue entries, 360° virtual tours including the Bacon studio, live-streamed talks and podcasts, and off-site education workshops in schools and cultural centres across Dublin.
Events
- Sundays @ Noon – free weekly concerts, classical and contemporary. During the refurbishment they move to the Abbey Presbyterian Church on Parnell Square.
- Workshops and family activities – children’s art workshops through the year.
- Lectures and talks – weekly, streamed and archived on the website.
Practical information
Opening hours: closed for refurbishment, expected to reopen in 2028.
Admission: free.
Website: https://hughlane.ie
Contact: phone +353 1 222 5550 • email info.hughlane@dublincity.ie
Accessibility: fully wheelchair-accessible, with two designated disability parking spaces directly outside the entrance.
Getting there: Charlemont House is on the north side of Parnell Square, a short walk from O’Connell Street, the Garden of Remembrance and Trinity College. City buses stop nearby, the Luas Green Line stops at Parnell, and the Red Line stop at Abbey Street is a ten-minute walk.
Nearby attractions: the Garden of Remembrance sits directly across the square, with the 14 Henrietta Street museum and the Gate Theatre close by.