From the corner of Earlsfort Terrace, turn on to the south pavement of St Stephen’s Green South. A short way on the left, 91m (100yds),is white-faced Iveagh House, at 80 and 81 St Stephen’s Green. Richard Castle, the German-born architect who was responsible for so many of Dublin’s grand 18th-century public buildings, designed No. 80 in the 1730s; his original façade was obliterated around 130 years later when this townhouse and the one next to it were knocked into one by Sir Benjamin Guinness. He commissioned a single front of Portland stone with the Guinness family crest above the front door. Guinness and his successors also carved out a pompous interior and bodged on a grand domed ballroom at the rear. The birth of the Irish Republic spelt the death of the gilded lifestyle of the Irish aristocracy, and in 1939 the 2nd Earl of Iveagh, Rupert Guinness, donated the building to the nation. It now houses offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Carry on along the south side of St Stephen’s Green South to Nos. 85 and 86, on your left. If you are here in summer and have booked a guided tour, turn left into the most beautifully restored example of a grand Georgian interior with magnificent stuccowork, marble floors and elegant wooden staircases. Like its near neighbour, Iveagh House, it comprises two houses in one. The smaller of the two, No. 85, is largely the work of the ubiquitous Richard Castle. The house is named after John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman), who founded the Catholic University of Ireland here to provide an education for students excluded from nearby Trinity because of their faith. Famous alumni include the authors James Joyce and Flann O’Brien (real name Brian O’Nolan) and the IRA leader and former president of Ireland, Eamon de Valera. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins taught here, and his study is open to the public.

Carry on along the south pavement of St Stephen’s Green South. At the end of the block, turn right to cross the street, then cross St Stephen’s Green West and walk up the west side of the park. The Royal College of Surgeons is midway up on your left, and dominates this side of the Green. St Stephen’s Green West is the least prepossessing aspect of the park, and the massive seven-bayed front of the college, built in 1810 and added to in 1825, is less elegant by comparison with the earlier Georgian buildings nearby. Topping its portico are three statues. From left to right as you face the building, these represent Hygieia, Greek goddess of health, Aesculapius, god of healing (whose symbol, a serpent twining around a stick, is sometimes still used outside hospitals and clinics) and Athena, goddess of wisdom. Like the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, the college still proudly bears the scars of the Easter Rising of 1916, when it was garrisoned by a contingent of the Irish Citizen Army led by Michael Mallin and the redoubtable Countess Constance Markievicz. Their detachment was the last to submit to the British, who later executed Mallin but reprieved Countess Markievicz. Hanging a woman, and an aristocrat at that, was apparently unthinkable, and she later went on to become the first woman to be elected to the British House of Commons.

Pass by the college on your left, walk to the north end of St Stephen’s Green West, recross the street and enter the park of St Stephen’s Green by the entrance at its north corner, passing beneath Fusiliers Arch. The arch was built in 1907 in honour of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, many of whom died serving the British Empire in the second Boer War.

From here, continue along Beaux’ Walk, the path that runs along the north side of the park, with the lake on your right hand side, to the east corner of the park and the exit to Merrion Row. The Green’s most prominent monument is in front of you. Nicknamed ‘Tonehenge’ by irreverent Dubliners, this is sculptor Edward Delaney’s memorial to Wolfe Tone (1763–98), leader of the United Irishmen in the abortive revolt of 1798. Like Charles Stuart Parnell, Tone was a Protestant as well as a committed Irish nationalist. His rising failed when France did not send enough arms, troops and ammunition to support his little army, and his supporters melted away. To this day, he is still honoured as one of the founders of modern Irish nationalism.

Leave the Green by its east exit, at the corner of St Stephen’s Green North and St Stephen’s Green East. Cross to the opposite side of St Stephen’s Green East, turn left and after a few paces take the first right into Kildare Street. Stay on the right-hand side. The dignified Victorian buildings of the National Museum of Ireland are one third of the way up the block. Turn right to enter the museum courtyard through a pair of arched wrought-iron gates. The National Museum’s archaeology collection spans more than 9,000 years of Irish history and prehistory, but its newest section is the eerily fascinating ‘Kingship and Sacrifice’. The peat bogs that still cover much of Ireland have weird preservative properties, and archaeologists have recovered the leathery cadavers of Iron Age men and women, along with tools, weapons and clothing. Some appear to have been strangled, suggesting that human sacrifice may have been practised in Ireland 3,000 years ago. Archaeologists speculate that in times of poor harvests a king or chief might voluntarily have been sacrificed as a way of sending a messenger to appeal to the gods for help. You could easily spend half a day here, marvelling at the intricate gold and bronze relics of the ancient Celtic world. The superb creations of the fusion of Irish and Norse cultures from the 9th to the 11th centuries are reminders that the Vikings were not entirely the coarse barbarians that Christian chroniclers made them out to be. If time is limited, the essentials are the famous Tara Brooch, the Ardagh Chalice – a magnificent early Christian artefact – and the gorgeous prehistoric treasures collected in the ‘Or – Ireland’s Gold’ section. 

Retrace your steps back along Kildare Street to St Stephen’s Green.