Saint Stephen's Green
A cattle-grazing marsh in 1663, now 22 acres of Georgian green at the top of Grafton Street.
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Dublin Corporation carved this out of a 60-acre common in 1663, selling the perimeter for building and keeping 27 acres as a central green. Georgian townhouses filled the edges through the 1700s. William Sheppard redesigned the interior and Lord Ardilaun reopened it on 27 July 1880. At 22 acres it is the largest of Dublin's Georgian garden squares, edging out nearby Merrion and Fitzwilliam.
What to look for
- Georgian townhouses from the 18th and 19th centuries ringing the perimeter — the building material of the entire square
- The rectangular layout bordered by four streets each named after the Green itself: North, South, East, and West
- The Luas tram stop on the surrounding streets, installed during the 2004 traffic changes that quieted the roads around the park
Grafton Street, Dublin's main shopping strip, runs adjacent to the park; a Luas tram line stops on the surrounding streets.
Saint Stephen's Green is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Dublin, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Dublin pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Dublin
- Aviva StadiumOne 51,711-seat bowl jointly owned by rugby and football — two governing bodies, one ground, no separate home for either.
- Dublin CastleThe river that gave Dublin its name still flows beneath your feet — and the building above it ran Ireland for 750 years.
- Croke ParkThe fourth-largest stadium in Europe holds 82,300 people — almost entirely for sports most of the world has never watched.
- National Library of IrelandIreland's paper memory — manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers free to open on the spot.
- St Patrick's CathedralIreland's national cathedral has never had a bishop — that role belongs to the rival church 400 metres up the road.
- Spire of DublinA 120-metre stainless-steel pin planted on the exact spot where an IRA bomb in 1966 — and a controlled demolition six days later — erased Nelson's Pillar.