Marino
MARINO , just off the Malahide Road three miles north of
the city centre (#20A and #24 bus from Eden Quay), is the home of
the eighteenth-century Casino, one of the most delightful pieces of
Neoclassical lightheartedness you could hope to see anywhere. The
bus will let you off next to some playing fields, from where the
Casino, exuberantly decorated with urns and swags of carved
drapery, is clearly visible to the left.
Needless to say, the Casino (mid-June to Sept daily
9.30am-6.30pm; Oct daily 10am-5pm; Nov & May to mid-June Wed
& Sun only noon-4pm; last admission 45 minutes before closing;
£2/€2.54; Heritage Card) has nothing to do with gambling.
Commissioned by Lord Charlemont (whose town house in Parnell Square
is now the home of the Municipal Art Gallery), it was designed in
the 1750s by Sir William Chambers, the leading Neoclassical
architect of the day, to accompany a villa which would in turn
house some of the priceless works of art he had brought home from
his grand tour of Europe. Marino House - the building of which
spared no expense, and is said to have crippled Lord Charlemont's
estate - was demolished long ago, but the Casino, restored in 1984,
survives in perfect condition, crowded with witty and unlikely
architectural features: the urns, for example, conceal
chimneys.
As you go back into town, try to sit upstairs on the left-hand
side of the bus. As it turns from the Malahide Road into Fairview,
you can see Marino Crescent, an elegant row of Georgian town
houses, once nicknamed "Ffolliot's revenge" after a painter who
built the crescent out of spite to block the view from Marino House
to the sea. Ffolliot's final twist of the knife was to make the
backs of the houses, which faced Marino House, an unsightly jumble
of chimneys, ill-placed windows and sheds
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