Number 44 Essex Street East belongs to a type of urban house that was once commonplace in the city but has since become genuinely rare, its distinctive roofline marking it out as a survivor from an era of Dublin that has largely been demolished, built over, or simply forgotten.

The house is identified as being of Dutch Billy type, a term used to describe a particular style of tall, narrow townhouse characterised by a gabled front facade, often with a curved or stepped profile at the roofline. The style arrived in Ireland and Britain in the late seventeenth century, associated broadly with the architectural fashions that accompanied William III's court, though the type spread widely through merchant and artisan building well beyond any royal influence. In Dublin, Dutch Billies were once a dominant feature of the older street fabric, particularly in the Liberties and along the quays and their surrounding lanes. Most were cleared during successive waves of Georgian redevelopment and twentieth-century clearance schemes. According to archaeologists Linzi Simpson and Ed O'Donovan, who assessed the building in November 1997, No. 44 Essex Street East carries the hallmarks of this type and could date from anywhere in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, though a precise date has not been established.

Essex Street East runs just south of the Liffey, in the area known historically as Temple Bar, a district that underwent extensive redevelopment in the 1990s. Visitors exploring the older laneways here should look upward rather than at street level, since the ground floors of many buildings in this area have been significantly altered over the decades. The gabled roofline is the detail to look for at No. 44, and it is best appreciated from a short distance back on the street rather than directly outside. The building does not announce itself, which is rather the point.