John Laurence

Terraced two-bay four-storey house, built c.1700, as single house that originally included No.54A. Shopfront to front (north) elevation added c.1970 and now in use as shop. Shared pitched roof, hipped to west, with shared red brick chimneystack, painted brick parapet with granite coping, and cast-iron rainwater goods. Painted brick laid in Flemish bond to walls, rebuilt to third floor. Square-headed window openings having granite sills and one-over-one pane timber sash windows. Timber fascia over square-headed window and door openings to shopfront, square-headed door opening to west of shopfront with timber panelled door and overlight.

Dublin Civic Trust's 'Survey of Gable-Fronted and Other Early Buildings of Dublin City' (2012) states 'The unassuming Victorian commercial frontage of No.54 conceals a much earlier building, the origins and original format of which are unclear and are complicated by the presence of the adjoining Molyneaux Yard running through No.54A. It would appear that No.54 and No.54A were once the same building, as the stairwell is inordinately large for such a modest building - likewise, the surviving timber cornice at ground floor level is grander than the scale of the present property divisions. It appears that a large mansion was constructed on this site in the late 1600s and was subsequently subdivided in the early eighteenth-century, similar to houses on Aungier Street of the same period, and hence it does not feature on Rocque’s map of 1756. Further modifications were probably carried out c.1800 and later in the nineteenth-century when the building adopted its current appearance, including its brick façade and one-over-one sash windows. Recent works to No.54A are likely to have obscured or removed evidence of the original layout of the buildings. Nonetheless, the ground floor shop of No.54 is likely to retain elements which would assist in identification, including possible timber cornicing under its suspended ceilings and original wall finishes/opes behind the stud shelving.' Thom's Directory of 1862 lists it as the property of Mrs Norah Kelly, grocer, tea, wine and spirit merchant, indicating that there is a long commercial history associated with this site.