It's such a modest house for its time that it's hard to believe it supported a kitchen maid, nurse, governess and a cook. That, however, was 150 years ago. No 3, Synge Street (now No 33), Dublin, is the birthplace of George Bernard Shaw and was home to him for the first 10 years of his life.
It was here, in 1852, that George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly came to live a few months after their marriage in nearby Aungier Street. It was a mismatch right from the start. George, with his ailing flour mill in Dolphin's Barn, thought, erroneously, that he was marrying money; Bessie (Elizabeth), then 22, was looking not for love but for escape from a strict upbringing. The bottles left in the hotel wardrobe during the Liverpool honeymoon might have given her some inkling of what was to come: his father's "disgraceful tippling" was how Shaw later described it.
Still, the couple rubbed along together somehow, producing three children during their Synge Street years, with George, the last and only son, arriving feet first at the Lying-in Hospital in the Coombe in 1856 and delivered by the Master himself.
Bessie was no housekeeper and had no head for money, but with labour cheap - the Famine had left people desperate for money and a maid could be hired for £8 a month - there was no shortage of women ready to wash, clean, cook - and look after the children. The old basement kitchen - with its range and deal table - was a place of refuge for young George, known then as Sonny. Here, he would sit warming himself by the hob while he ate "stewed beef, badly-cooked potatoes and drank much too much tea left to draw until it was pure tannin".
For an outing, his nurse would take him to St Stephen's Green for a walk, occasionally stopping off in a pub on the way. These outings were not to his liking: the nurse tended to hit him across the head if he misbehaved.
Much better were the outings he arranged for himself - playing marbles all the way to the Coombe and back to Dolphin's Barn, taking in Portobello Bridge on the way home where, if the season was right, he was able to rob a nearby orchard.
The sash windows of Sonny's little bedroom overlooked the back yard with its jacks in one corner and the mangle in the other. Upstairs is the drawing room with its high ceiling, red velvet chaise-longue and on the piano the sheet music. The Angel's Message - composed by Sonny's beloved mother. Here, too, she entertained her lover and mentor George Vandeleur Lee and together they held musical get-togethers - which even included Sonny's father.
It was Patrick O'Reilly, "your local binman", who later pressed for a plaque to be put on the house. His correspondence with Shaw is displayed, including the letter outlining Shaw's idea that it should simply bear his name, surrounded, he suggested, by a circle of shamrocks.
Shaw, of course, was a political animal, as the photos on the wall in the hallway attest. They include one of Casement and a dashing one of Jim Larkin, complete with moustache and wide-brimmed hat. Shaw was especially good friends with James Connolly and indeed supported his family after he was executed.
There is a real sense of the period in Dublin in Shaw's house. Gloomy though the dark wallpaper and heavy drapes are, there is a sense that this was a house where a lot was going on, a place where a small boy could find comfort in the warm kitchen and be indulged by a somewhat bohemian mother who put lashings of butter on his bread; a place where, occasionally, he could withdraw into the shadows with his own thoughts. In brief, Number 3, Synge Street, was an excellent breeding ground for a soon-to-be writer, and visiting it is a little like being at the beginning of a great literary event.
No 33 Synge Street is open every day, 10a.m.-5p.m. (11a.m.-5p.m. Sundays). Tel: 01-4750854