Mayfair

Attached three-bay three-storey house over basement, built c. 1830 as one of pair, having full-height return to middle of rear elevation. Pitched roof, having brick parapet with cut granite coping, and rendered chimneystack with clay pots. Red brick walling, laid in Flemish bond, having cut granite plinth course over rendered basement walling, and rendered to rear. Square-headed window openings with rendered reveals, granite sills and replacement uPVC windows throughout, and having wrought-iron bars to basement window. Round-headed doorway with moulded render reveal and timber doorcase comprising panelled pilasters and stepped lintel, timber panelled door and plain fanlight. Rendered platform having cast and wrought-iron railings and quarry-tiled path approached by two granite steps. Wrought-iron gate with cast-iron collars to front, with matching railings set on rendered plinth having cut granite coping.

The form and fabric of this house are characteristic of residential design in the late Georgian era in Dublin. Despite the loss of original fabric, the house retains its façade composition and townhouse appearance, maintaining a pleasing regularity on the terrace. Drumcondra Road Lower is part of one of the principal ancient routeways leading north from the city, the Great Drogheda Road. The planting of the London limes along the road verges in the eighteenth century coincided with the development of the terraces of red brick houses, of which this house forms a part. NOTE: 75 Drumcondra Road Lower was once the home of the solicitor Matthew Francis "Mat" Kane (1865-1904) who suffered a heart attack and drowned while swimming in Dublin Bay (10th July 1904). Kane is named in the Ithaca episode of "Ulysses" (1922) by James Joyce (1882-1941) and it is believed that his funeral inspired the funeral of Paddy Dignam which is attended by Leopold Bloom in the Hades episode. The characters of Martin Cunningham in "Dubliners" (1914) and Andrew Martin Cunningham in "Finnegans Wake" (1939) are also believed to have been based on Kane.