Stories of the Four Courts

This photograph of the birthplace of philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke at 12 Arran Quay, Dublin, published in the Sphere of 22 November 1902, shows the attractive shopfronts of buildings near the Four Courts a century or so ago.

Burke’s father was an attorney, and Arran Quay – a very genteel location in the 18th century – would have been conveniently close to the old Four Courts at Christchurch.

The house was demolished c. 1950, apart from a doorway left alone in a blank wall for a few years afterwards, to serve as inspiration for the occasional literary visitor inclined to existential musings on the passage of time…