Doors of Dublin

Our hotel in Dublin was very near the Georgian section of town on Merrion square. This part of Dublin was originally built around the 1790's as a fashionable suburb away from the merchants and shops of busy Dublin. The land the houses sat on was rented from the city, to allow for the collection of taxes, but the houses were owned by the individual families. The Number 29 museum I visited last Tuesday is an example of one of these houses. The most interesting feature of this section of the city are the colorful doors. It really stands out as you walk through the area. The buildings are all different heights, but all have the same flat facade and multi-paned windows. The houses all look rather plain, but it's the doors that really make each house unique. Today most of these houses are businesses, but these doors remain. There are many theories as to why the doors are so colorful. One is that "the famous writer George Moore lived next to another famous writer, Oliver St John Gogarty, in Ely Place. Both were a bit eccentric and it’s said that Moore painted his door green so that the drunken Gogarty would not come knocking on it, thinking it to be his own door. Gogarty then painted his door red so that the drunken Moore would not come knocking on his door! And that’ supposedly is what started the fashion." (from an Irish customs and culture web site) Rick Steves, a PBS travel show personality, says that the colorful doors originated because the Dubliners of the time rebelled against the suggestion to paint their doors black after the death of an English queen. So I'm not sure where the idea came from, but it sure adds a bit of spark to otherwise plain buildings. That seems reason enough to me.