Items in family budgets in Dublin two hundred years ago make envious reading in contrast to their present-day size. The diary of a married woman who lived in Peter Street - then a fashionable quarter - in 1750 contains many details of domestic expenditure, among which the cost of the family's holiday outings is not the least interesting.
Harold's Cross was frequently ordered for change of air by the Dublin doctors of that day, and the good dame tells how she and her family of five daughters spent their holidays there in the summer of 1753. She writes: "Coach hire, when all the girls and I went to look at lodgings in Harold's Cross and to take the air at Templeogue, 2 1/2 hours, 2/4 1/2. Have this day agreed with Mrs Middleton for two rooms, the street closet, use of parlour and kitchen, with a bed for my man-servant, the dairy, and leave to walk when we please in the garden, at the rate of 15/- per week." There are also particulars of another "outing" to the County Wicklow. The whole family travelled in a postchaise to Tiinnehinch; breakfasted, dined and had tea in Bray; visited Powerscourt and the Dargle Glen, and the total cost came to £2/0/9.
The Irish Times, February 20th, 1931.