I am so at home in Dublin, more than any other city, that I feel it has always been familiar to me. It took me years to see through its soft charm to its bitter prickly kernel - which I quite like too.
This broad, pleasant street, laid out in the eighteenth century, contained the homes and haunts of many prominent figures associated with parliament; hence the large, fine houses.
The commercial heart of Dublin city centre, with its large shops and many shop assistants, was fertile ground in the nineteenth century for Fenian recruiters.
The excellent website of Dublin life and lore Come Here To Me! embarks on a discussion of that now vanished phenomenon “the Rathmines accent”, prompted by the (not, it must be said, enormously well vouched) idea that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was taught English by an Irishman - in fact a native of Leinster Road in Rathmines.