Mrs Dowling’s flat, brighter and cheerier in its 1940s and 50s condition, is one of the most intriguing parts of the house. There is no luxury here, but this authentic space feels warm, livedin and familiar. Objects and pictures crowd the rooms, as though Mrs Dowling has just stepped out for a few minutes. There are tiled fireplaces and linoleum floors, a piano with music open on its stand, the top crowded with framed photos. The table is laid for tea, a loaf half-sliced. Importantly, where most of the colourful wallpaper has been recreated using patterns found in the house, some original fragments are left on one rough wall, reinforcing the sense of the people who lived here. Each room is brought to life through a story of one particular family, that universalises the experiences of many of that class and that time. Portrait reproductions are used to good effect, as are videos throughout that share the house’s history through photographs, newspaper clippings, documents and Irish Film Institute Mrs. Dowling’s flat. Credit: Olwen Purdue
footage. These keep the narrative flowing, but at times are a bit too long, with some repetition. The stars of the show are surely the guides. How often have we trailed wearily through country houses desperately wishing the tour was over? Not in 14 Henrietta Street! My captivating and
sweepingly reminiscent, cantilevered staircase
enthusiastic guide spoke with genuine interest
that is utterly contemporary. The former grandeur
and passion about the house’s history, drawing on
of the first floor rooms presents a backdrop for
his first-hand knowledge to relate the stories and
the stories of the house’s early occupants, told
experiences of the people who had once lived in
through audio-visual projections. Bare of material
the house.
culture, these rooms are an apparent precursor to the real Henrietta Street narrative of a tenement
Our large group passively listened throughout and
slum.
those of all ages would at times have been more effectively engaged through more interactive set
Through a door, everything changes. We descend
presentation. At New York’s Tenement Museum,
to the early twentieth-century tenement rooms
for example, each room is enriched using copies
via the house’s back staircase, once infested by
of primary documents and artefacts, through
rodents and climbed at night in total darkness.
which guides encourage smaller groups of visitors
The stone floors and walls of a basement room,
to explore the house’s history. I would also have
that once housed a family of thirteen, is in stark
valued information on the intriguing processes
contrast to the fine plasterwork and polished
of bringing Henrietta Street back to life, that are
floorboards of earlier centuries upstairs. The
instead only hinted at through the wallpaper
room lacks any ornamentation bar some religious
and through linoleum remnants that were used
iconography: a few chipped mugs and a single
as a template for newly-created fabrics. More
old bedframe are the only furnishings. In this
information on the social and historical research,
room, we are informed about the harsh realities
tough decisions, challenges and craftsmanship
of life on Henrietta Street and about the impact
that restored and repurposed the building, would
of the Dublin Lockout and the Great War on its
have been welcome.
inhabitants.
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