Rathmines

LEINSTER SQUARE AND PRINCE ARTHUR TERRACE

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Leinster Square has a number of attractive houses, designed mainly by John de Courcy Butler, and my Grand Aunt lived in one of them and it was huge but it always smelled of town gas which I found unpleasant as a child.

Prince Arthur Terrace could be described as an extension at one corner of the square was developed in two stages 1851-1853 and 1856-1859.

The writer Patricio or Patrick Lafcadio Hearn at Prince Arthur Terrace as well as Leinster Square.

Years ago I worked for KAO a Japanese Multi-National. The Japanese CEO attended the official opening here in Dublin. During his speech he said that his main reason for being in Ireland was that he admired the Irish Writer Lafcadio Hearn and therefore he would devote a week to researching the local history of the writer. I was the only one that understood the reference as I had spent some summer holidays with my Grand Aunt in her home on Leinster Square.

Yakumo Koizumi (小泉 八雲, 27 June 1850 – 26 September 1904), born Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (細川護熙; Greek: Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χέρν, romanized: Patríkios Lefkádios Chérn), was an Irish writer, translator, and teacher who introduced the culture and literature of Japan to the West.

His writings offered unprecedented insight into Japanese culture, especially his collections of legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. Before moving to Japan and becoming a Japanese citizen, he worked as a journalist in the United States, primarily in Cincinnati and New Orleans. His writings about New Orleans, based on his decade-long stay there, are also well-known.

Hearn was born on the Greek island of Lefkada, after which a complex series of conflicts and events led to his being moved to Dublin, where he was abandoned first by his mother, then his father, and finally by his father’s aunt (who had been appointed his official guardian). At the age of 19, he emigrated to the United States, where he found work as a newspaper reporter, first in Cincinnati and later in New Orleans. From there, he was sent as a correspondent to the French West Indies, where he stayed for two years, and then to Japan, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

In Japan, Hearn married Koizumi Setsuko, with whom he had four children. His writings about Japan offered in the Western world greater insight into a culture that was still unfamiliar to it at the time

As a matter of interest Prince Arthur, 1st Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was a member of the British Royal Family, the third son and seventh of the nine children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Arthur had a long and distinguished career in the British Army that included service in South Africa, Canada, Ireland, Egypt and India. Promoted to Field Marshal in 1902, in 1904 he was given the newly created post of Inspector-General of the Forces and was tasked with reporting on the status of the British Army. He was subsequently unwillingly sent to Malta as commander-in-chief; he resigned the position in 1909. Having ended his military service he was appointed Governor General of Canada.

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