Home of all the Behans

Ballsbridge: €1.2m Playwright Brendan Behan and his wife Beatrice paid less tha £3,000 for a home on Anglesea Road in 1959. Frank McDonald visits the house with a place in Dublin's literary history

The late Beatrice Behan recalled in her memoirs how she and Brendan Behan acquired number 5 Anglesea Road in 1959 - a red-brick, semi-detached late Victorian house, which she described as "ugly on the outside, but neat and compact within".

With seven rooms and a rear garden extending down to the Dodder, the estate agent wanted £3,000.

"It's my present to you, Beatrice", said the colourful, hard-drinking playwright. "Offer them £1,400 and see what happens".

A small bronze plaque beside the entrance porch says: "Brendán Ó Beacháin 1923-1964, playwright poet author revolutionary lived in this house 1959-1964".

The door is a shocking shade of green and the number is rendered as Cúig.

Anglesea Road is a long way from Russell Street, beside Croke Park, where Behan grew up. But he made a home of it, inviting friends back for a drink or two after the pubs closed.

Luke Kelly, for example, sang and played his banjo in the front room. Actor and writer Paudge Behan, who is selling his family home with some regret, recalls other visitors such as Niall Toibín and actors Eamon Keane and Joe Pilkington. "There were a lot of 'gentlemen callers', as my mother always referred to them."

The front room, with its bay window, has a white-painted period slate fireplace.

Paudge has a photograph of Brendan sitting here with his assistant and publicist Rae Jeffs, author of a 1967 biography, Brendan Behan: Man and Showman.

The rear room - they are not interconnected - has a cast-iron fireplace and pitch pine floorboards.

Three steps lead down to the original kitchen, with its red-and-black tiled floor, where the range was replaced by a dark rubble-stone fireplace.

A new kitchen was installed in the 1970s in a boxy extension to the rear, brightened up by a rooflight. The tiled floor has a curious, river-like feature made up of shards of pottery and glass, where pipes had to be taken up and replaced.

There is also a bathroom here and a small conservatory where Beatrice used to paint. The garden, leading down to the Dodder, is a wilderness now, but Paudge remembers playing there with his sister Blanaid and their pet rabbit, Sneachta.

In the mid-1960s, the house was divided into two self-contained flats. The upper part of the stairs is enclosed by a stud partition, though the original bannisters probably survive inside it; reinstating it will be the first task facing new owners.

The large main bedroom in front was sub-divided to provide a kitchen and livingroom for the upstairs flat.

Just like the boxed-in stairs, it is hard to imagine that this arrangement will survive the major refurbishment which the house clearly needs.

There is a view into the RDS showgrounds from the bay window and the room also retains its slate fireplace with original inset tiles, though it looks rather incongruous against a chimneybreast stripped of its plaster to reveal the bare brick.

The back bedroom has a lovely tree-filled view looking towards Herbert Park; its fireplace is missing, however. There is another bedroom on the return as well as a small bathroom. This bedroom, somewhat darker, is currently used for storage.

Paudge Behan says it's a "complete fluke" that the property is to be auctioned on June 16th - Bloomsday.

The agent, Gunne, a quoting a guide price of €1.2 million for the potentially elegant house, with its slice of Dublin's literary history.