The Crescent

If you have ever been travelling through Fairview heading away from town, or if you coming down the Howth or Coast roads in the direction of town, you cannot have failed to notice the fantastic crescent of houses that surround the enclosed Bram Stoker Park, which are entitled, somewhat unimaginatively, The Crescent.
Apart from being the most attractive structures in the locality, The Crescent has an interesting story attached to its creation.
People may not know that a lot of what is now Fairview Park is reclaimed land, and that, a couple of hundred years ago, the sea would have come up as far as what is now the main road through Fairview. At this time, much of what now constitutes the suburb of Marino would have been the grounds of Marino House, owned by one James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont.
The good earl constructed his house (and the attendant folly, known as the Casino at Marino) in such a way that he would have a nice view of the sea. However, the earl seems to have had a dispute with the delightfully named Ffolliott, a painter from Aungier St.
The particulars of this dispute have been lost over the years, but you can take it that it must have been serious enough, as in 1792 Ffolliott thought it important enough to acquire the land immediately in front of the earl’s residence and to construct The Crescent, designing the buildings in such a way that they would ruin Earl Charlemont’s view.
It’s one of the little ironies of history that The Crescent, today much admired, were built originally to be one man’s eyesore.
It’s always nice when architectural structures of note have a little bit of a story attached.