Mansion House Dublin: Visiting the Lord Mayor’s Residence

Article Summary

What this article covers: How and when visitors can get inside Mansion House Dublin, the Lord Mayor’s residence on Dawson Street, what the public tour shows, and the mansion’s history and notable features from 1705 to the First Dáil.

Who this is for: Travellers planning a first trip to Dublin who want to see inside the Lord Mayor’s residence, and readers following the story of Irish independence.

Key takeaway: The Mansion House is a working civic residence that does not open daily, but anyone can walk in free on Culture Night in September or during Open House Dublin in October, and diners can sit in its 1864 Supper Room all year.

Expert insight: “On an ordinary weekday the Mansion House looks almost modest, set back from the Dawson Street pavement while shoppers walk straight past it. I always stop people at the forecourt and tell them that the members of the First Dáil met in the Round Room beside that front door in January 1919. If you can get to Dublin for Open House in October, stand in the Oak Room among the coats of arms of past Lord Mayors, because that room has been doing the same civic job since 1715.” , Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove

Quick facts:

• Dublin Corporation bought the house from Joshua Dawson in 1715 for £3,500, plus a yearly rent of forty shillings and a six-pound loaf of double-refined sugar every Christmas.
• The Round Room was built in 1821 for the visit of King George IV, and the First Dáil met there on 21 January 1919.
• Dublin City Council describes the Mansion House as the oldest mayoral residence in Ireland and Britain, and the oldest free-standing house in Dublin.

You can visit Mansion House Dublin, but only on certain days. The Lord Mayor’s official residence opens to the public on Culture Night each September and during Open House Dublin each October, and groups can ask the Lord Mayor’s office for a tour. For the rest of the year, the forecourt and the restaurant in the old Supper Room are your way in, which makes it an easy stop on any walking day in the city centre.

Visitors searching for Dublin mansions often expect a stately home with a ticket desk, and this is a different kind of building. The house has been the residence of the city’s Lord Mayor since 1715 and is still used for civic receptions and events, which is why the public calendar is short. ConnollyCove, the Ireland-based travel and culture platform founded by Ciaran Connolly, covers Irish heritage alongside practical visiting advice, and this guide sets out each route inside, the rooms you will see and the history that makes the building worth the effort.

Four routes take visitors inside the Mansion House

Individual travellers have two free public routes inside, and groups, diners and passers-by each have one more. Dublin City Council states that the house is in use for Lord Mayor events and functions, opens to the public each year for Culture Night and Open House Dublin, and holds occasional open days in between.

Culture Night and Open House Dublin are the free public routes

Culture Night falls on a Friday evening in September, when cultural venues across Ireland open free of charge. Open House Dublin is the free architecture festival run by the Irish Architecture Foundation over about nine days in mid-October. At recent festivals the Mansion House tours were drop-in, ran every 30 minutes on the Saturday and were led by former Lord Mayors and Dublin City Council staff, but the format can change, so check the programme each year.

Groups can ask the Lord Mayor’s office for a tour

Organised groups can request a visit through the Office of the Lord Mayor, and the Mansion House page on the Dublin City Council website explains how to make contact. The council passes each request to the Lord Mayor, who decides which visits go ahead, so write well ahead of your planned date and offer more than one option.

FIRE Steakhouse sits in the 1864 Supper Room

The restaurant is the one way to sit inside the Mansion House complex on almost any day. Fáilte Ireland’s Discover Ireland listing describes the dining room of FIRE Steakhouse & Bar as the Lord Mayor’s Supper Room, built in 1864, with vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows and a terrace overlooking the Lord Mayor’s Garden. A meal there does not include the Oak Room or the other reception rooms, which open only on public days.

The forecourt and the front are open to everyone

The street front is visible at any hour. The original Queen Anne style house has a symmetrical seven-bay front onto Dawson Street, and Dublin City Council’s history of the building notes that it was first faced in brick and later plastered. In December the forecourt holds the Live Animal Crib, run by Dublin City Council and the Irish Farmers’ Association since 1995.

Route	When it runs	Who it suits	What you see	Our advice
Culture Night	One Friday evening in September	Anyone in Dublin that night	Rooms opened for the evening, free	Arrive early and check the programme
Open House Dublin	About nine days in mid-October	Individuals and families	Oak Room, Drawing Room, Dining Room and Lady Mayoress Parlour, free	The best chance for most travellers, so plan a trip around it
Group request	By arrangement with the Lord Mayor’s office	Societies, schools and community groups	Depends on the visit agreed	Write well ahead with flexible dates
FIRE Steakhouse & Bar	Restaurant hours, all year	Diners	The 1864 Supper Room and garden terrace	Book a table if you miss the autumn open days
Forecourt and exterior	Any time	Everyone on Dawson Street	The front, forecourt and December crib	Combine it with a walk to St Stephen’s Green

The public tour covers the historic ground floor rooms

On Open House days the tour follows a one-way route through the Oak Room, the Drawing Room, the Dining Room and the Lady Mayoress Parlour, all on the ground floor. Each room carries a different part of the house’s story, from its first owner to Queen Victoria’s visit.

This short ConnollyCove film shows Mansion House Dublin and its setting on Dawson Street. It gives you the view every visitor gets from the forecourt, which is the part of the house you can see on any day of the year.

The Oak Room keeps Dublin’s civic history on its walls

The Oak Room was built as a condition of the 1715 sale, when Joshua Dawson agreed to add a room for civic receptions, and it is still used for receptions today. Some of its original oak panelling survives. The walls carry a portrait of Charles Stewart Parnell and the coats of arms of Dublin’s Lord Mayors, each agreed with the Chief Herald of Ireland to reflect that person’s life.

The Drawing Room and staircase window come from different centuries

The Drawing Room, also called the Blue Room, survives from the house Joshua Dawson built. The stained glass window on the staircase was made much later by the Dublin firm of Joshua Clarke and Sons for Queen Victoria’s visit in 1900; Joshua Clarke was the father of the stained glass artist Harry Clarke.

The Round Room operates as an events venue

The Round Room stands beside the house and today runs as a conference and events venue, so most visitors see it only at an event held there. If it is your main reason for visiting, check whether it is open before you queue.

Three centuries of history sit behind the Dawson Street front

Mansion House Dublin has been at the centre of the city’s civic life since 1715, and its most famous day came in 1919 when the First Dáil met in the Round Room. For the longer background, ConnollyCove’s account of how Dublin grew into Ireland’s capital sets the scene.

Joshua Dawson built the house on marshy ground

Joshua Dawson, a merchant and property developer, acquired marshy land outside the old city walls in 1705 and laid out the street that still carries his name. Dublin City Council records that his townhouse was begun in 1705, and it was completed around 1710, although Dawson seldom lived in it.

The 1715 sale came with a sugar loaf rent

On 25 April 1715, Dublin Corporation bought the house for £3,500 as the Lord Mayor’s residence. The Round Room’s venue history records that the Corporation also agreed to pay Dawson a yearly rent of forty shillings and a six-pound loaf of double-refined sugar each Christmas. Dublin City Council notes that this gave the Dublin Mansion House a 15-year head start on London’s equivalent.

A royal visit in 1821 produced the Round Room

The Round Room was purpose-built in 1821 so that the city could receive King George IV. Queen Victoria was the second monarch to visit it, in 1900. Between those visits, the house’s Lord Mayors included Daniel O’Connell, who took office in 1841.

The First Dáil met in the Round Room on 21 January 1919

On 21 January 1919, the Sinn Féin members elected in the 1918 general election met in the Round Room as Dáil Éireann and adopted the Declaration of Independence. Many could not attend because they were in prison, among them Constance Markievicz, the first woman elected to Westminster, whose story appears in ConnollyCove’s guide to Irish women who shaped the country’s history.

Dublin City Council records that the cabinet of the First Dáil also met in the house, and the Dáil used it as a meeting place until 1922. Special joint sittings of the Oireachtas returned to the Round Room for the 50th anniversary in 1969, addressed by President Éamon de Valera, and for the centenary in 2019, addressed by President Michael D Higgins.

The GPO on O’Connell Street, shown in this ConnollyCove video, was the headquarters of the 1916 Rising, three years before the First Dáil met on Dawson Street. It is about 15 minutes’ walk north of the Mansion House, so the two buildings fit easily into one afternoon on the independence story.

Autumn and December are the seasons to plan around

If seeing inside Mansion House Dublin is a priority, plan your trip for late September or mid-October. Those are the two dependable public openings, and December brings the crib to the forecourt.

Autumn brings the open days

Culture Night takes place on a Friday in the second half of September, and Open House Dublin runs over about nine days in mid-October. Open House booking for pre-book tours opens in September, although recent Mansion House tours have been drop-in, so check the format when the programme appears. Autumn in Dublin is mild but often wet, so bring a light waterproof for the queue.

December brings the Live Animal Crib

The Live Animal Crib usually opens on the forecourt in early December and runs until Christmas Eve. Its location depends on the Lord Mayor of the day; in 2022 it moved to St Stephen’s Green before returning to the Mansion House the following year, so check the announcement each November.

Dawson Street makes an easy hour’s walk

Mansion House Dublin sits near the St Stephen’s Green end of Dawson Street, which runs north to Nassau Street and Trinity College, parallel to Grafton Street. That makes it an easy stop on a walk through the Georgian south side of the city.

Start at St Stephen’s Green, the city centre park at the top of Dawson Street, a couple of minutes from the Mansion House forecourt. Dawson Street meets the north side of the park, so you can walk from the gates to the Mansion House in a straight line.

This ConnollyCove video shows the paths and lakes of St Stephen’s Green. It is a natural place to begin, or to finish with a rest on a bench.

Walking north, you pass St Ann’s Church, built on a site Joshua Dawson gave to the parish, where Bram Stoker married Florence Balcombe in 1878. Readers who know Stoker from ConnollyCove’s guide to famous Irish authors often add the church to their route. The Royal Irish Academy, which holds major Irish manuscript collections, is a few doors further on.

Duke Street or South Anne Street will take you across to Grafton Street and its buskers, the pedestrian shopping street between the Green and Trinity. Both side streets are short, so the detour adds only a few minutes to the walk.

Grafton Street, filmed here by ConnollyCove, runs parallel to Dawson Street. It is known for the musicians who play along it through the day.

At the top of Dawson Street is Trinity College, founded in 1592 and home to the Book of Kells. Our guide to Trinity College, its history and its library covers tickets and timings.

The Trinity College library, filmed by ConnollyCove, holds the Book of Kells. It is about five minutes on foot from the Mansion House, at the far end of Dawson Street.

From Trinity, the lanes of Temple Bar, Dublin’s cultural quarter on the south bank of the Liffey, are a short walk west. Its pubs and galleries make a good place to end the walk in the evening.

If you only have a day, ConnollyCove’s 24 hours in Dublin itinerary strings these stops together with the rest of the city centre. It works well alongside this guide if your visit falls outside the autumn open days.

Practical details make visiting Mansion House Dublin simpler

The Mansion House is on Dawson Street, Dublin 2 (Eircode D02 AF30), near the St Stephen’s Green end. The Luas Green Line has stops at Dawson and St Stephen’s Green, and many city centre bus routes stop within a few minutes’ walk.

There is no parking at the house. Dublin City Council directs drivers to the public car park immediately behind it, off Schoolhouse Lane, and states that access for visitors with a disability is by a platform lift to the left of the building. Open House tours stay on the ground floor, and invited guests are asked to ring the doorbell for the House Steward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Plan your Mansion House Dublin visit around the open days

A trip timed for late September or mid-October gets you through the door of the house where the First Dáil met, while any other week still gives you the forecourt, the Supper Room and the Dawson Street walk. Check the Culture Night and Open House Dublin programmes when they are published, then build the rest of your day around the street.

ConnollyCove covers Dublin’s history and landmarks alongside Irish heritage across the island, and the ConnollyCove YouTube channel has more short films of the streets in this guide. If your own family story leads back to Ireland, our guide to the Irish diaspora and Ireland’s citizens beyond the seas is a good next read.