Under the Glass Roof of St.Stephen’s Green

There is a moment, just inside the entrance, where Dublin stops being a city and becomes something else entirely. The noise dims. The light changes. And above you, a clock the colour of old gold hangs in an atrium that feels more like a memory than a building.

• Place: St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, Dublin 2
• Built: 1988, designed by architects Robinson Keefe Devane
• Feature: Victorian-style cast-iron and glass atrium with ornamental balconies
• The Clock: A large gilded decorative clock suspended at the centre of the atrium
• Medium: Watercolour on paper
• Series: My Irish Ways — Watercolours of Ireland

A Space That Wasn’t Supposed to Feel Like This

I walked in to get out of the rain. That is the truth of it. I had no sketchbook open, no composition in mind. I was just cold, and the door was there.

But then I looked up. The atrium rose above me — all iron and glass and arching light — and the golden clock at its centre held still against the movement of everyone passing beneath it. I stood there for a long time. Long enough to know I needed to paint it.

St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre was built in 1988, but it has the bones of something older. The tiered balconies, the hanging lanterns, the soaring glass roof — it borrows the language of Victorian arcade architecture and uses it to hold a Dublin that still feels, somehow, continuous with its past.

What the Clock Does to the Room

Everything in the atrium defers to that clock. I noticed it immediately — the way the eye is drawn upward, past the balconies, past the hanging pendant lights, to where the gilt face sits suspended in the arch of the roof.

It is not a working clock in the earnest, municipal sense. It is more like a declaration. A reminder that time is passing, even here, even in a shopping centre on a grey Tuesday. There is something almost theatrical about it. And something unexpectedly tender.

“Everything in the atrium defers to that clock — the eye is drawn upward, past the balconies, past the hanging lights, to where the gilt face sits suspended.”

Painting in Layers

I worked from sketches made on the spot and photographs I took that afternoon. The light inside is diffuse — it falls from the glass panels above in a way that softens everything and makes shadows gentle rather than hard.

In watercolour, that quality of light is both a gift and a challenge. You have to leave space for it. Trust that the white of the paper, held back in the right places, will carry the glow. I laid in warm ochres and pale greens for the balconies, let them dry, then worked back in with the darker ironwork details.

The clock I painted last. I wanted it to read as gold without becoming heavy. A few careful washes of burnt sienna and yellow ochre, a little glazing to build depth. Then I lifted out highlights with a damp brush, very gently.

The figures at the bottom of the painting are small deliberately. They are there to give the space its scale — to show how much room the building makes for the sky above you. Dublin at ground level is always a little crowded. But look up, and there is all this light.

Dublin Inside

I paint outdoors most often – streets, parks, the canal in the morning. But there is a particular kind of Dublin that only exists inside — in the old pubs, the covered markets, the covered passages between buildings. The St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre is part of the interior of Dublin.

People come and go quickly. They are checking their phones, carrying bags or hurrying for a bus. Most of them do not look up. But the building is patient. It keeps the clock in the light. It holds the arch steady. It waits to be noticed by whoever has a moment to stop and look.
I am glad I walked in out of the rain that day.

#dublin #ireland #StStephensGreen #ShoppingCentre