Uisce faoi thalamh?

I came across this interesting doorway the other day when out prowling around the capital, as is my wont.

I thought it a disgrace and hoped it might just be in an embarrassing phase in its restoration, but you never know these days.

I added it to my Flickr collection when I got home and I commented to some friends that you'd think Trinity College would take better care of their façades. This was under the mistaken impression that I had taken the photo in Westland Row, where TCD own one side of the street.

Yesterday, when I was passing where I thought I had taken it, I was amazed that it appeared to have either vanished or been completely tidied up. Then I got a niggling doubt about where I had actually taken it.

So, when I got home I checked out Google Street View by retracing my steps on the day the photo had been taken and found that I had actually taken it in Kildare Street. It is one of the few frontages of this type on Kildare Street, which is mainly the home of various institutions. Westland Row, on the other hand, has many such frontages. Thank you Google.

On closer inspection of the Google Street View frontage, I saw that the door had been blurred out. Very odd. You have to request this, it doesn't just happen. So what was the secret of the red doorway that the occupants, or former occupants, did not want revealed.

It clearly was not a personal privacy issue as you can see that there was nobody, whose anonymity might need protecting, at the door. And it dated from anything up to two or three years ago, when, as you can see, the door was red instead of its current blue.

The premises is directly across from Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel, where a lot of celebrities and other dubious types stay or meet. And it is within a short distance of the former Anglo Irish Bank HQ, the Irish Parliament, Buswells Hotel - frequented by parliamentarians, the Government Departments of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Minister for Finance, Minister for Agriculture, and the Attorney General, not to mention the Freemasons' Hall.

So what the hell was going on here then?

I offer the above reflections to the NSA, Mossad and G2, who are by now, no doubt, reading this very post.

Hi Guys.