SMALL WONDER

Masterpiece boasts 25 rooms and tiny books readable with magnifying glass

- BY CIARA O'LOUGHLIN

TAKE a look inside one of the best dollhouses in the world - at its new home in one of Ireland's most curious museums, Visitors are travelling to The Little Museum of Dublin to see what's regarded as one of the largest and most astonishing dollhouses in existence.

After a year-long €4.3million makeover, the award-winning attraction reopened last month.

A new addition is Tara's Palace, a 2.5-metre by four-metre miniature based on 18th-century Irish mansions: Leinster House, Castletown House, and Carton House.

No detail has been overlooked in the making of the not-so-miniature home. With little mice made from bone carvings and tiny plates meticulously handcrafted from porcelain, any adult would love to play with this masterpiece.

The incredible structure took over a decade to create by Tommy Clancy, Paul Geoghegan, Con Lee and Michael Walton.

It came about after Titania's Palace a dollhouse made in the 1900s for the owner of Dublin's Merrion House, Nevile Wilkinson - was sold to England.

AUCTION

President of the Irish Antique Dealers Association, Ronnie McDonnell, tried to buy it when it went up for auction in 1978.