The building is four storeys tall, two bays wide, and sits on a plot of roughly six metres, rising to about twelve metres at the front parapet. Modest enough dimensions, but the details are what matter here: a cruciform roof, a substantial chimney stack running along the western boundary, angled chimneybreasts inside, and a rear return that together point firmly toward a type of urban domestic architecture that has almost entirely vanished from the Irish streetscape.

The term 'Dutch Billy' refers to a distinctive form of terraced house, characterised by a gabled roofline and internal arrangements that reflect the strong Dutch and Flemish influence on Irish building during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The style arrived in Ireland largely in the wake of William of Orange's campaign, and took particular hold in Dublin, where merchant wealth and rapid urban expansion created demand for tall, narrow, well-built townhouses. The cruciform roof plan, visible in this example, was a practical solution for a deep plot on a narrow frontage, allowing usable space across multiple floors while managing rainwater drainage. At their peak, Dutch Billies lined many of Dublin's older streets in considerable numbers, but successive waves of redevelopment across the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries reduced their presence to scattered survivors. The precise date of this particular house is unrecorded, and its file is noted as missing, which places it in the quietly frustrating category of buildings whose history has slipped through the administrative net.

Because the exact address is not documented in the available record, finding it requires a degree of patience and a willingness to read rooflines rather than facades. The cruciform roof profile is the most reliable thing to look for; seen from a slight distance or from an upper-floor window opposite, it gives the building away even when the front elevation has been altered over time. Dublin's south city retains pockets of pre-Georgian fabric in areas that saw earlier settlement and trade, and a slow walk through some of the older residential streets, eyes lifted above shopfront level, will occasionally reward the attentive. The angled chimneybreasts, if the building is ever accessible internally, are among the clearest diagnostic features of the type.