Which is one of the most famous postcards one can receive from Dublin or Ireland? Exactly: the colorful doors.
So no wonder when I was lately in Dublin I had a look at these different styles and colored doors.
Luckily I was with a friend who told me a story why the doors are always looking so different.
Not different to today Irish men also centuries ago liked to go to the pub in the evening and having a pint of Guinness, and second, a third… until the bell rings at 11 pm and the last order has to be done. So very often the men came home a little less controlled and lightly confused sometimes which door is the right for the home, all looking grey in the night. And it was not uncommon that they took the wrong door and finished in the bed of someone else’s wife. Of course the ‘right’ husband was not amused like the wives themselves.
But now we know a woman finds always the way to re-direct her man in the right place and the wives colored their doors all in another color. So no excuse anymore for the husband to find the right door. If the man lives in the house with the purple door then he has to come back to the house with the purple door. And not the green one.
Of course there is another story. In the 17th century the Georgian Dublin houses and of course doors looked all the same. Beautiful entrances but not really distinguishable from each other. So Dubliners wanted to give them a more individual look and started to decorate and paint them after their own personal gusto. Bright colors, decorative knockers and a nice lantern.. and suddenly the doors looked all different like the house owners were.
I like the first story better than the second. But both are nice and a good explanation for these colorful doors.
Dublin, Co. Leinster/Ireland:
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