Former Irish Houses of Parliament, College Green, Dublin, Éire

Former Irish Houses of Parliament, College Green, Dublin, Éire

What you see here is some of the elaborate detail on the facade of the buildings that housed the Irish Parliament before it got dissolved as part of the 1801 union with Great Britain. The buildings that house the current Irish parliament, Leinster House, are in numerous ways less impressive than these.

Then, the Irish parliamentary system was bicameral with a House of Commons and a House of Lords while the current one has the Dáil (assembly) and the Seanad (senate). Only the upper chamber of the latter's predecessor are open to the public while the lower chamber is used for banking operations since it passed to the Bank of Ireland on condition that the building was altered to obstruct its reuse as a parliamentary base.

See more photos from this album (City of Dublin)