Daly's Club

Daly's Club, with premises known as Daly's Club House, was a gentlemen's club in Dublin, Ireland, a centre of social and political life between its origins in about 1750 and its end in 1823.

Daly's had its origins in a Chocolate House, established in about 1750 at numbers 1–3 Dame Street, Dublin, later described as "the only society, in the nature of club, then existing in the Irish metropolis". The establishment was much frequented by members of the Parliament of Ireland. In the 1760s, a group of gentlemen who met there constituted themselves as a club, which was said to be named after Henry Grattan's friend Denis Daly (1748–1791). In some ways this came to resemble White's in St James's Street, London, both in importance and exclusivity.

In 1787, the blackballing of William Burton Conyngham from political motives led to an exodus of members from Daly's, who in the shape of the Kildare Street Club formed a new club which soon rivalled Daly's as a fashionable haunt.

In 1790 a number of members of Daly's who were also members of the Irish Parliament paid for a new club house at number 3, College Green, close to the Irish Houses of Parliament. The new premises, designed by Francis Johnston, stretched from Anglesey Street to Foster Place and were opened with a grand dinner on 16 February 1791. With marble chimneypieces, white and gold chairs and sofas covered with aurora silk, the new club house was superbly furnished.

Daly's Club reached the height of its notability after its arrival at College Green. It was one of the venues for meetings of the Irish Hell Fire Club, which met variously at Montpelier Lodge on Montpelier Hill, at the Eagle Tavern on Cork Hill near Dublin Castle, or at Daly's on College Green.

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