house

Attached three-bay four-storey former house over basement, built c. 1790 as part of terrace of eight (Nos. 80-87), having two-storey return to rear. Now in use as offices. Pitched slate roof to front, behind brown brick parapet with granite coping, and two hipped roofs to rear perpendicular to street, that to west higher and shared with neighbouring property. Shouldered rendered chimneystacks to east with clay pots. Concealed rainwater goods. Flemish bond brown brick walls with moulded granite plinth over painted rendered basement walls. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in height to upper floors, with plain reveals, soldier arches, painted granite sills, and with granite block-and-start surrounds to basement openings. Round-headed stairs window opening to rear elevation. Timber sliding sash windows, nine-over-six pane to first floor, three-over-three pane to top floor and six-over-six pane elsewhere to front elevation; fenestration and glazing pattern repeated to rear elevation. Decorative wrought-iron balconettes to first floor front and rear. Segmental-headed Portland limestone door opening with moulded architrave, Ionic columns, fluted frieze and moulded entablature, radial fanlight and eight-panel timber door with brass furniture. Granite platform with cast-iron boot-scrapes and five granite steps. Basement area enclosed by wrought-iron railings with decorative cast-iron posts on moulded granite plinth. Timber glazed door and multiple-pane fixed window to basement entrance. Plaque to front wall reads 'Senator William Butler Yeats 1865-1939 Poet & Playwright Lived Here 1922-1928.' carparking to rear.

No. 82 Merrion Square is a well-proportioned and elegant house, once the home of one of Ireland's greatest literary figures, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). Later the office of the architect Rudolf Maximilian Butler. The relatively modest façade is enlivened by an Ionic doorcase and the good-quality metalwork to its railings and balconettes provides additional features of interest. the building forms part of the Fitzwilliam Estate's original development of the eighteenth-century square that is one of the best-preserved Georgian streetscapes in Ireland. The north, east and south sides are lined with terraced houses of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century date, while the west side is terminated by the garden front of Leinster House. The houses maintain a relatively uniform building height and design, attributed to standards promoted in Fitzwilliam's leases. Individuality was introduced through the design of doorcases, window ironwork and interior decorative schemes. The south side of Merrion Square was initially set in large plots to twelve lessees; plots were leased consecutively from east to west up to 1791.