Fitzwilliam, Mountjoy, Merrion etc - a day out for a bunch of squares

Saturday's Dublin Garden Squares Day gave people the opportunity to learn more about five of Dublin's Georgian squares and to enjoy a variety of events – shame about the balloon though, writes BRIAN BOYD

THE INAUGURAL Dublin Garden Squares Day transformed five of the city’s best known outdoor areas into multi-tasking, information-juggling, history-teaching, all-singing and all-dancing adventure playgrounds over the weekend.

Organised by Dublin Civic Trust, Garden Squares Day was “an invitation to celebrate the glory of Dublin’s Georgian Garden Squares”. While people may be familiar with Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square, Mountjoy Square and Parnell Square and St Stephen’s Green, Garden Squares Day opened up their hidden histories, revealing them as underrated urban amenities.

And if history, architecture and wildlife weren’t your thing, there were also tango dancing, puppet shows, choral singing and painting classes – along with lashings of frozen yoghurt, crepes and cakes.

The idea of opening up a city’s great squares in an educational and entertaining way originated in London a few years ago and proved so popular that there is now a Garden Square Day event in many European cities every year.

Geraldine Walsh, chief executive of the Dublin Civic Trust – an independent, charitable organisation that concerns itself with the city’s architectural heritage – was the prime mover behind Saturday’s event. A walking encyclopaedia of Georgian Dublin, Walsh, with help from the ESB and the Office of Public Works, organised a great party.

It ran from 10am to 6pm, and handy little maps at each of the five venues showed you how you could avail of the Dublin Bikes scheme to cycle between the squares (which, according to my iPhone stopwatch, meant you could go from Merrion to Fitzwilliam to Stephen's Green to Parnell to Mountjoy and back to Merrion Square in under 45 minutes . . . if you gave it a bit of welly).

PARNELL SQUARE

Beginning at Parnell Square, activities here were at a minimum due to the space available, but architect James Kelly did a sterling job with his 2pm historical tour of the square and its gardens. Formerly Rutland Square, most of the area is now taken up by the many extensions to the Rotunda Hospital – or as it was quaintly once known, the “Dublin Lying-In Hospital”.

MOUNTJOY SQUARE

A quick pedal brought you over to Mountjoy Square only to find that the planned traditional Iraqi music group had to cancel at the last minute. Their place was ably taken by some pelvic-enabling samba music grooves and the St George’s Brass Band. And there were dancers, lots and lots of dancers. With food and ice cream available, there was a relaxed, day-at-the-beach atmosphere in the normally traffic-choked area.

ST STEPHEN’S GREEN

Some of the biggest crowds of the day were for events in St Stephen’s Green, where after Eileen Brennan’s popular garden tour, the Dublin-based Tango Argentino brought some sultry dance moves to the bandstand. They were joined by whoever happened to be passing. Which on Saturday afternoon, included the Murphy wedding party, who were making their way across the green from University Church to their reception in Bentley’s on the other side.

Meanwhile, over at the summer house – just opposite the Shelbourne Hotel, a former Irish National Chess Champion, Sam Collins, was taking on all comers. On the way out, a Norwegian choir were taking to the bandstand.

FITZWILLIAM SQUARE

Down at Fitzwilliam Square, the only private square on the route and the last of Dublin’s great Georgian amenities to be built, there was a two-hour tutorial in watercolour painting as well as a demonstration of the refined sport of lawn bowling.

Only two of the houses facing onto Fitzwilliam Square are in full residential use (flats excepted). We nodded sagely when it was explained that Fitzwilliam Square was always associated with “new money” and the mercantile classes, while Merrion Square had more of an aristocratic reputation. I always thought that.

MERRION SQUARE

Merrion Square was the hub of Garden Squares Day. The house at Number 29 – the ESB Georgian House Museum — had guided tours of its interior all day, with many of the guides in Georgian-era clothing.

Walking tours and arbocultural information was on hand for the adults while the Imaginosity folk from the Dublin Children’s Museum laid on all manner of child-friendly fun and games. Particularly popular, with as many adults as children, was Conor Lambert’s (son of the famous Eugene Lambert) Custard Pie Puppy Company.

The big reveal here was supposed to be the 4.30pm hot air balloon ride, which would commemorate the hydrogen balloon flight taken by Richard Crosbie, Ireland’s first aviator, back in 1785 but soon word came in from the Aviation Authority that there was a problem with the atmospheric “thermals” over Dublin.

So a lot of excited children – and one adult who was more excited than all of them combined – were disappointed.

In place of the balloon, two doves were released into the air. One hundred small helium balloons had been distributed to children and these were all duly tossed up into the air to mingle with the flight pattern of the doves.

The numbers weren’t great on Saturday (what with it being a World Cup quarter-final day), but Geraldine Walsh is intent on making this an annual event.

“Everything ran smoothly; we had the right weather, all the events went down very well and this is definitely something to build on for next year.”