The Irish Times

High rents in south Dublin? No available development land between Dún Laoghaire and the city centre? Houses in the north inner city "which look as if they had seen better days"? Ireland in 2006? No, these were some of the impressions of an English traveller in Ireland more than 160 years ago. William Makepeace Thackeray, the English writer best known for the novel Vanity Fair, wrote one of the most famous travel books about Ireland following a four-month tour of the country in 1842. Thackeray had a fine eye for detail and was keenly interested in the houses - of both rich and poor. His Irish Sketch Book begins with his arrival by sea. Observing Kingstown (the British name for Dún Laoghaire) he noticed that: "Numerous terraces and pleasure-houses have been built in the place - they stretch row after row along the banks of the sea, and rise one above another on the hill." The area was fashionable and expensive: "The rents of these houses are said to be very high; the Dublin citizens crowd into them in summer; and a great source of pleasure and comfort must it be to them to have the fresh sea-breezes and prospects so near to the metropolis."