house

Attached three-bay three-storey former house, built c. 1695, with full-height gabled closet return. Recent full-width shopfront to ground floor. Now disused. Pitched roof with ridge set perpendicular to street, having rendered parapet and cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills and replacement windows. Metal roller shutter to shopfront.

Dublin Civic Trust's 'Survey of Gable-Fronted and Other Early Buildings of Dublin City,' 2012, states 'No. 21 Thomas Street is of special significance in the city, being a rare surviving example of a low, modestly-scaled gabled house dating from the opening decades of the eighteenth century. Although its facade has been comprehensively replaced and the roof pitch has been lowered slightly, the superstructure of the house has otherwise survived this modification, while the closet return is one of the most intact examples left in the city with its original steeply pitched roof. The basement is also remarkably intact and a rare survivor of its period. The staircase structure, in spite of the loss of balustrading, appears to be intact.' Recent further research undertaken by Dublin Civic Trust indicates that this house was built as part of a group of four good-sized houses (plus others), following a lease issue of c. 1693. Judging by the diminutive scale and interlocking staircase internally, this is almost certainly an early 1690s house and is probably the most intact of its kind in Dublin.