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MARINO , just off the Malahide Road three miles north of the city centre (#20A and #24 bus from Eden Quay), is the home of the eighteenth-century Casino, one of the most delightful pieces of Neoclassical lightheartedness you could hope to see anywhere. The bus will let you off next to some playing fields, from where the Casino, exuberantly decorated with urns and swags of carved drapery, is clearly visible to the left. Needless to say, the Casino (mid-June to Sept daily 9.30am-6.30pm; Oct daily 10am-5pm; Nov & May to mid-June Wed & Sun only noon-4pm; last admission 45 minutes before closing; GBP2/?2.54; Heritage Card) has nothing to do with gambling. Commissioned by Lord Charlemont (whose town house in Parnell Square is now the home of the Municipal Art Gallery), it was designed in the 1750s by Sir William Chambers, the leading Neoclassical architect of the day, to accompany a villa which would in turn house some of the priceless works of art he had brought home from his grand tour of Europe. Marino House - the building of which spared no expense, and is said to have crippled Lord Charlemont's estate - was demolished long ago, but the Casino, restored in 1984, survives in perfect condition, crowded with witty and unlikely architectural features: the urns, for example, conceal chimneys. As you go back into town, try to sit upstairs on the left-hand side of the bus. As it turns from the Malahide Road into Fairview, you can see Marino Crescent, an elegant row of Georgian town houses, once nicknamed "Ffolliot's revenge" after a painter who built the crescent out of spite to block the view from Marino House to the sea. Ffolliot's final twist of the knife was to make the backs of the houses, which faced Marino House, an unsightly jumble of chimneys, ill-placed windows and sheds
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