Letterheaded letter from W. W. Kennedy and Co, 122 Upper Dorset St, Dublin

Reply to being asked when he thinks World War 2 will end. Jokes about Adolf Hitler retiring to Vice Royal Lodge, Dublin.
In 1943 the playwright George Bernard Shaw was living in London. Shaw went to school here on St. Stephen’s Green, and never lost his accent, even though he left Dublin at 20. A magazine called The Strand asked a number of writers when they thought the Second World War would end. “Nothing doing,” Shaw writes here, “I never prophesy until I know; and nobody yet knows where those two will end. My best guess is that Adolf will enjoy a dignified retirement in the Vice-Regal Lodge in Dublin, which is presumably to let at present.”

Letter dated 31 July 1967 from Haughey to Eric Patton discussing a payment of 55 guineas.
Charles Haughey was Minister for Finance at the time he wrote this letter to Eric Patton, from the Richie Hendriks Gallery. While the gallery, which was here on Stephen’s Green, was cutting-edge, the painting in question recently sold for just €800. In the same year, Haughey sold his old house in Raheny for £200,000, having bought it for £50,000 ten years earlier. The land had been rezoned in the interim. Opening an office building on St Stephen’s Green that year, he announced, “I, for one, have never believed that all architectural taste and building excellence ceased automatically with the passing of the18th Century.” That same year, 1967, Haughey bought Abbeville, an eighteenth century mansion designed by Gandon.

A letter dated 28 October 1976 from Samuel Beckett to John Hughes, who lived in Beckett's old home, in which he lists his old schools and describes where he slept in the house. It includes the line 'If you ever meet my ghost in house or grounds, give it my regards.' Also a black and white photograph of the house in question as well as the envelope.

Playwright Samuel Beckett wrote this letter to schoolboy John Hughes, who was living in the house where Beckett grew up – Cooldrinagh in Foxrock. Say hello to my ghost, urges Beckett.

Handwritten letter from John Banville to the Little Museum of Dublin Director, Trevor White. 'Perhaps I shall will my brain to the museum so that after ages can wonder at its smallness.' The letter is dated 8.vi.2011. Envelope stamped 7/6/11

Collection of topographical postcards in blue folder