Dublin’s layout includes a number of well-preserved Georgian era squares. Elegant brick townhouses were built around a central garden. Often, only the residents of the surrounding homes had keys to enter the garden. Here, the Monkey poses atop a solar-powered parking meter in Fitzwilliam Square, which went up between 1791 and 1825. Today, the doors and fanlights of the Georgian townhomes enjoy a certain popularity, and are much photographed.

The Monkey goes back to nature in the pleasant garden at the heart of Merrion Square, another treasure of Georgian urban planning in Dublin. Laid out in 1762, the square covers 12 acres. Two of Ireland’s literary giants lived on Merrion Square: Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats.

The Monkey gets in on the action of one recent history’s more curious cults: the Georgian door craze. There is undeniable appeal to the simple symmetry of these portals, and in a funny way they act like the neckties for the buildings, adding a splash of color (red, green, yellow, blue) to the monotone red-orange of the mostly brick townhomes.

Near Fitzwilliam Square, the Monkey took a break by the gentle running water of the Grand Canal. Construction of the Grand Canal began in 1755, and it stretches from Dublin into the interior of Ireland through a series of locks like this one. Today, there is considerable interest in reviving the canals and other inland waterways for touristic and commercial purposes.

Trinity College Dublin is one of Ireland’s premier institutions of higher learning. Founded in 1592 on the basis of a charter from Queen Elizabeth I, the university became a centerpiece of the Anglo-Irish Protestant community, rivaling its English cousins Cambridge and Oxford. Among its most renowned graduates are the satirist Jonathan Swift, the United Irishmen rebel leader Wolfte Tone, novelists Samuel Beckett and Bram Stoker, the first president of Ireland Douglas Hyde, and (later) the first female president of Ireland Mary Robinson. Here the Monkey enjoys the interplay of architectural styles in two of the buildings that make up part of Trinity College’s expansive library.