

The randomiser agreed that we should begin with the watercolour that graces the book's cover: James Mahonyâs âDublin from the Spire of St Georgeâs Church, Hardwicke Placeâ (NGI, 1854). Mountains to sea, and everything in between



âBut this isnât off Dublin!â, you say! Well, yes. But, itâs âDeathâ (c.1930s, NGI) by Harry Kernoff, a colourful tableaux drawing on the danse macabre. A version of this once graced the walls of Toto Cogleyâs cabaret on Harcourt Street.


A very different type of party! Rose Bartonâs watercolour (1897, NGI) shows the swells making their way into Dublin Castle for the viceroyâs levee. For full effect, read George Moore's 'A Drama in Muslin' while viewing this



Walter Osborneâs âThe Fish Marketâ, (1893, HLG), is one of several depictions of Patrick Street by Osborne. Contemporaries viewed these as important records of the street prior to its redevelopment in the later 1890s.


Evening Herald? Daily Nation? Irish Times? Jack B. Yeatsâs âDublin Newsboy Boarding a Tramâ (1926, Harvard) is part of a series of tram paintings completed during the 1920s. This image doesnât capture how richly textured the canvas is!


A very different view of Patrick Street! This is 'Patrick Street, Dublin' (c1960s, NGI) by Flora Mitchell, reproduced in her 1966 publication 'Vanishing Dublin'. Like many of us today, Mitchell felt that the city was rapidly changing.






Harry Kernoffâs âUnemployedâ, from his 1942 publication âWoodcutsâ. This is a portrait of Jack OâNeill who, along with Kernoff and others, travelled to Russia in 1930 with the Irish Branch of the Friends of Soviet Russia.


Richard Thomas Moynan's 'Death of the Queen' (NGI,1902) is still a grand (late) Victorian painting. In the finest manner of nineteenth-century urban paintings, it shows a cast of city 'types' and makes a sentimental plea to it's viewer.