The museum have been running tours of St Stephen's Green on Saturdays and Sundays for a while now and I recently joined one with Ronan Sheehan, author of Heart of the City.
Like many Dubliners I've come to think of The Green as a place to come and relax, have a picnic and feed the birds (or the aggressive seagulls!) As we walked around I came to realize that all of Dublin's history has been played out in some form or other within its four boundaries
This, now iconic, arch commemorates Irish involvement in the Boer War.
From it's ancient Gaelic origins as commonage, to the Huguenots of the 1600's, the gallows of the 1700's including the revolutionaries and rebels of more modern times, St Stephen's Green has witnessed so much. Of course there's the hilarious account of what happened to ballerina Anna Pavlova when she performed in the nearby Gaiety... but you'll have to join a tour to find out about that!
Lord Ardilaun, a member of the Guinness family, was responsible for a number of philanthropic works around Dublin, including opening up St Stephen's Green to Dubliners.
The tours are packed with anecdotes, humor and theater. They take place on Saturdays and Sundays until October at 11.30am and are included in the price of your ticket to the Little Museum of Dublin.
The Little Museum of Dublin 15 St Stephen's GreenDublin 201 6611000Website
