Dublin hotels collection

Outside the Georgian houses of Dublin, iron discs are set into the pavement: coal was tipped through them, straight down into the cellar. The brick façades do without ornament, and only the doors speak, painted in strong colours beneath their fanlights, at the top of a few granite steps. On the bay, at Sandycove, people swim at the Forty Foot in every season, below the Martello tower where Joyce begins Ulysses. Around Merrion Square, the windows shrink floor by floor, and the façade arranges the household from bottom to top, from the drawing room to the servants.