Republic of Ireland · Leinster · Dublin
Monto, Dublin — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Monto is a small area in Dublin's northeast inner city, on the northside above the River Liffey. The name is short for Montgomery Street, now called Foley Street. For a few decades either side of 1900, it ranked among the largest red-light districts in Europe, a notoriety that long outlived the brothels themselves. James Joyce set the "Nighttown" episode of Ulysses here.
About Monto
Where to stay in Monto
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Monto is not a hotel quarter in its own right, holding mostly flats, redeveloped housing, and small businesses. What it offers a visitor is position. Connolly Station, on the eastern edge, puts DART and mainline trains a few minutes' walk away, and O'Connell Street runs just to the west.
Beds cluster on the surrounding streets rather than inside Monto, so many visitors book along Gardiner Street or across the wider Dublin northside. Choose it for transport links and a workaday inner-city setting, not for a scene.
About Monto
What are the main landmarks in Monto?
Monto itself holds no major monument; its sights are the ones that ring it. The Spire of Dublin rises over O'Connell Street a few minutes to the west, near the James Joyce Centre on North Great George's Street. Saint Francis Xavier Church anchors the district's Gardiner Street edge.
Down towards the river, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum fills old vaults at Custom House Quay, and the Garden of Remembrance sits up on Parnell Square. All sit a short walk from Monto.
What is the history of Monto?
Monto took its name from Montgomery Street, part of the Georgian expansion of Dublin's northside. Through the late nineteenth century it grew into one of the largest red-light districts in Europe, with brothels packed along Montgomery Street, Mecklenburgh Street, and the lanes off Gardiner Street. Soldiers from the garrison kept it busy.
James Joyce drew on the area for the "Nighttown" episode of Ulysses, and it survives in the ballad "Take Me Up to Monto." Garda raids and a Legion of Mary campaign closed the brothels in the 1920s, and the old streets were later cleared and rebuilt.
Where is Monto?
Monto occupies a few blocks of Dublin's northside, hemmed in by Talbot Street to the south and Gardiner Street to the west. Amiens Street and Connolly Station close off the eastern side, with Seán McDermott Street running along the north. Its old core followed Montgomery Street, since renamed Foley Street, with Railway Street a block above it.
The River Liffey lies just south.
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Updated July 2026