The Ballagh house is perfectly pop. Situated at the end of a south-facing terrace of small artisan dwellings in Broadstone, Dublin’s north inner city, 3 Temple Cottages is one of the most familiar houses in Irish art.

It became something of an icon in 1977, when Robert Ballagh painted his family outside their home. In No 3 — an important work and the first in a series of figurative paintings he made of the house — his face is hidden behind a book called How to Make Art Commercial. Back then he was used to signing on the dole.

Today, Ballagh is bathed in success. He is a prominent member of Aosdana, the republic’s aristocracy of artists. He designed the last set of Irish bank notes before we entered the euro zone. His postage stamps are cleaner and more colourful than many others. Millions have enjoyed his theatre sets, in particular those for Riverdance and the opening ceremony for this summer’s Special Olympics in Croke Park.

Sixty next month, Ballagh’s financial future is secure, thanks to royalties from the worldwide success of Riverdance, which also funded the award-winning transformation of his inner-city home by Boyd Cody Architects.

“Anyone who’s as old as I am,” says Ballagh, “remembers the scene in Help!.” In Richard Lester’s 1965 film, the Beatles’ Rolls-Royce pulls up outside a terrace of two-up, two-down houses.

Piling out, John, Paul, George and Ringo head for home — each to a different front door. As they bid each other a neighbourly good evening, two local women remark how the lovable mop tops have never lost the common touch. When the Fab Four close their front doors behind them, however, they are all in the same room and their home turns out to be a huge, gadget-filled, space-age interior. There’s more than a hint of the film Help! about the recent transformation at Temple Cottages.

As a former show-band musician — who in 1967 sold his bass guitar to Phil Lynott and who, in his early days, was called Ireland’s first pop artist — that’s how it should be. “My work,” says Ballagh, “has always been about irony.”

Betty Ballagh has lived at the same address all her life. One of six children, she grew up in 3 Temple Cottages. About the time she married Robert, in 1967, the Dublin Artisan Dwelling Company offered to sell the house to Betty’s mother for £650. She in turn offered it to the newlyweds, who dithered for so long the house eventually cost them £750.

When the Nolan family, their neighbours at number 4, moved out in 1985, the Ballaghs bought their house for £17,500. Three years ago they paid £150,000 for number 5, which their artist daughter, Rachel, lived in for more than a year.

“The trigger was buying the third house,” says Ballagh. “We realised we couldn’t burrow through, but had to make a decent effort of it, with architects.”

They approached McCullough Mulvin, which was too busy to take on the commission but recommended two former employees, Dermot Boyd and Peter Cody.

They had studied together at the Dublin Institute of Technology. After graduating in 1990, Boyd took off to London, where he twice worked for John Pawson, the minimalist. “The work was minimal and the pay was too,” he says. Between stints with Pawson, he earned his living working with David Collins, the restaurant designer.

Although some say it was Pawson’s work that the colour magazines first fawned over, making architecture the media-friendly creature it is today, London was in recession as Boyd became the fourth member of the office.