That layering, one dwelling superseding another, is easy to overlook in a city where so much has been continuously rebuilt, but in this case the earlier name, the Glen, quietly survives in the historical record, preserved only because someone thought to write it down.

According to the architectural historian O'Dwyer, writing in 1981, Delville house was constructed in 1729 on the site of this earlier property known as the Glen, though even that date carries a caveat: O'Dwyer notes it as uncertain. The name Delville itself has some cultural resonance in eighteenth-century Dublin, associated with the world of Georgian society and the kinds of suburban retreats that prosperous households established at a comfortable remove from the city's denser streets. The fact that the site had a predecessor building, with its own distinct name, suggests a longer history of occupation on this particular ground than the 1729 date alone would imply.

The record for this site is sparse, compiled by Geraldine Stout and uploaded to the national inventory in September 2011, and visitors curious about the location should bear that thinness in mind. The Georgian period in Dublin north city produced a great deal of domestic architecture, ranging from grand terraces to more modest suburban villas, and Delville sits somewhere in that tradition. Because the precise date of construction remains uncertain and the documentary trail is thin, the site rewards those with an interest in how buildings accumulate histories beneath histories, rather than those seeking a straightforward or well-documented story.