Qualla: Grafton Street

Grafton Street: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jean Housen, CC BY-SA 3.0. The street curves because a river told it to. Beneath the paving stones of Grafton Street, the long-culverted Steyne traces the same line it cut through south Dublin centuries before there were shops here, before the pedestrian crowds, before Bono showed up on Christmas Eve with a guitar. Walk the half-kilometre from St Stephen's Green down to College Green and you are walking the channel of a vanished waterway, dressed today in granite paving and Christmas bulbs.

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Image: Jean Housen | CC BY-SA 3.0

Grafton Street: From Lane to Boulevard

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ardfern, CC BY-SA 3.0. By 1727 the development of Grafton Street was largely complete - a country path widened and built up, lined first with fashionable Georgian houses where theatre managers and novelists' families took first-floor apartments with dining rooms, bedchambers and closets. The street too...

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Image: Ardfern | CC BY-SA 3.0

Grafton Street: Dear, Dirty Dublin

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joseph Mischyshyn, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Victorian century treated Grafton Street roughly. By 1849 several buildings on the street had broken windows patched with paper. In 1862 the Dublin Builder complained that the street "abounds in old premises in need of doctoring up." The dilapidation arrived alongside somethi...

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Image: Joseph Mischyshyn | CC BY-SA 2.0

Grafton Street: The Buskers' Mile

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Irish typepad, CC BY-SA 2.0. Pedestrianisation came in pieces. A four-week experiment in September 1971 cleared the cars temporarily; permanent pedestrianisation followed in 1982; the granite repaving and new lighting arrived in 1988. What grew in the space the traffic vacated was a sound. Since the 1980s Gr...

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Image: Irish typepad | CC BY-SA 2.0

Grafton Street: Statues, Ghosts and Christmas Lights

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ritchie333, CC BY-SA 4.0. The statue of Molly Malone stood at the top of Grafton Street for years, sheltering tourists' photos and locals' meeting plans, until 2014 when the Luas tram extension forced her around the corner to Suffolk Street. Around the corner the other way, on Harry Street, stands a bronz...

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Image: Ritchie333 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Grafton Street: The Most Expensive Pavement

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit dronepicr, CC BY 2.0. By 2008 Grafton Street had become the fifth most expensive main shopping street on the planet, with rents around 5,621 euros per square metre per year. By 2016 it had eased to thirteenth, at a still-startling 3,300 euros. Look closely between the international logos and the price...

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Image: dronepicr | CC BY 2.0