When Irish author Artemesia D'Ecca went hunting for a Dublin Georgian house she could afford - one in poor condition, and little changed by time - she became familiar with many of the city's famous terraces. By the 21st century, few of those tall houses looked as if they had ever been loved. Some seemed close to collapse. They were built as family houses, but history intervened, and many had spent most of their existence as apartments or some sort of rooming house - until modern laws emptied them entirely of residents. In the 1980s and 1990s, the lifetime tenants, with rights and comfortable apartments, were forced out. The packed houses where everyone shared a bathroom - havens for the young and the poor - were cleared out later. The Georgian houses she inspected were often good value and had space for a big family, but in general, only artists and moguls have been drawn to them as private houses. Three of the houses she came close to buying have always stayed in her mind - one in Herbert Place, one in Lower Pembroke Street, one in Merrion Square - and became the settings of these stories.