Places George Moore Lived

Moore Hall & Lough Carra

Moore Hall & Lough Carra in Moore's youth. Maria Edgeworth, the novelist, and a friend of Moore's grandmother, possessed a copy of this engraving.

Moore Hall, Early 20th Century

Moore Hall as it was in the early 20th century, when Moore's brother Maurice lived there with his wife & sons. The house was burnt at the end of the Civil War by the IRA (reputedly on the orders of Eamon de Valera himself), possibly because Maurice was a Free State Senator. The contents were pillaged by locals.

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Moore Hall

After the house was burnt, the Moore Hall demesne was sold to the Irish forestry department, & a commercial forest grew up around the ruin. At present, the Mayo County Council is beginning to develop the old garden, and to landscape the area leading down to the lake.

Hotel du Quai Voltaire, Paris; GM lodged

Hotel Quai Voltaire, Paris

Moore stayed at the Hotel Quai Voltaire upon arrival with his manservant Wm Moloney in 1873, before moving to Hotel Russie.

Ely Place, Dublin

Foremost in his writings, therefore first, Ely Place—a short street ending in a cul-de-sac, just up from Merrion Square and the National Gallery, south of the Liffey in Dublin. The houses are in the Georgian style, dark brick, tall and reserved. In the centre of the row, looking down Hume Street is Ely House. Bram Stoker's brother Dr. Thornley Stoker lived there. Oliver St. John Gogarty came to live across the street, on part of the site now occupied by the Royal Hibernian Academy.

At the cul-de-sac end there is a terrace of five houses, sometimes called Smith’s Buildings, dated 1820, modest in size and uniform in design—long narrow windows of the later 18th century. Until quite recently high iron gates and railings divided the terrace from the abutting street. No.4, the second house from the end, was George Moore’s home during his ten years’ residence in Dublin.

The front windows faced west and then overlooked, opposite, a garden railed in by iron palings, covering the length of the terrace. Moore rented the garden, where he hosted Douglas Hyde's play The Tinker and the Fairy. Here in spring the apple trees, thorn, laburnum, and lilac made a profusion of blossom. There was a little slum at the back of the house, and from the drawing-room level on the second floor, there was an oblique view into the high-walled enclosure of a convent. Rent was £100 a year and a few pounds extra for the garden with the largest apple tree in Ireland. Moore had the door painted a controversially nationalist green.

61 Rue Condorcet, Paris

61 Rue Condorcet, where Moore lived in Paris, 1875-79, a short walk away from the Rat Mort & Café Nouvelles Athènes. It was there that Moore met Manet, Degas, Renoir, Villiers de Isle Adam, and others.

Dane's Inn

Holywell & Wych Street, London, c1901. Moore lived from 1881-85 at 3 Dane's Inn, nearby.

Freshcombe Lodge, Sussex

Freshcombe Lodge, high up on the Downs, & overlooking the sea, above Shoreham, Sussex. Moore joined Colton Bridger (a school friend of Moore's brother) there in 1888, when Bridger was trying to raise rabbits for profit and Moore was writing Spring Days.

Pump Court, The Temple, London

Pump Court, The Temple. Moore moved from Sussex briefly to No. 2 in Jan 1889. Playwright Edward Martyn and lawyerWilliam Geary had rooms there. Moore then sublet No. 8 King's Bench Walk from Geary.

King's Bench Walk, Temple, London; GM li

King's Bench Walk, London

King's Bench Walk, alongside the Thames. Moore lived at the top of No. 8 from 1889-94. He was a short walk away from Edward Martyn in Pump Court and Yeats & poet-critic Arthur Symons in Fountain Court. Moore memorably remarked that 'The Temple is the last vestige of the old London, combining the silence of the cloister with the license of the brothel.'

102 Victoria St, after a bomb 1941; GM l

Victoria Street

102 Victoria St, after being bombed in 1941. Moore lived nearby at 92, from 1895 until his departure for Dublin in 1901. He moved from King's Bench Walk in order to have a larger apartment to which he might bring Pearl Craigie...a vain hope.

Ebury Street, London

121 Ebury Street, near Victoria Station, & not a long walk from Lady Cunard's home in Grosvenor Square. GM loved London (see "Spring in London", Memoirs of My Dead Life). He lived there from his 1911 departure from Dublin until his death in 1933. Note the well-deserved blue plaque.