This city might not
be one of Europe’s most visually stunning, but what it lacks
in aesthetics it more than makes up for with its attractions. Most
of the sights are south of the River Liffey, in a district of Georgian
mansions and leafy avenues around Grafton Street and elegant St
Stephen’s Green. The landmarks here include Trinity
College, the National Museum, Leinster
House (home of the Irish Parliament)
The
Temple Bar district, once the site of Viking Dublin, has
reinvented itself. After its promising 1980s resurrection, Temple
Bar suffered under the weight of British stag and hen nights, scaring
off locals and tourists. The tourist board and publicans have worked
hard to deter the ravages of the pre-nuptial hordes.
West of Temple Bar, the Christ Church and St
Patrick’s (both vestiges of Anglo-Norman Dublin)
are architecturally impressive. The Norman city walls can be seen
from neighbouring Cook Street. Dublin Castle, the
symbol of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, and is on Dame Street.
The district of the Liberties to the west of St
Patrick’s Cathedral and is home to the Guinness Storehouse
and brewery, The Irish Museum of Modern Art and
Kilmainham Gaol – now a museum recounting
the struggles for Irish independence.
The city is bisected by the River Liffey and is crossed by a number
of bridges. These include the Ha’Penny Bridge
and its newest neighbour, the Millennium Bridge,
which links Ormond Quay Lower on the north bank of the Liffey with
Wellington Quay on the south bank.
North of the River Liffey the tourists dissipate in a rougher, grittier
area, which Roddy Doyle summed up as having more ‘soul’
than sights. The General Post Office (GPO), which
has a façade pitted with gunfire from the Easter Rising of
April 1916; the Dublin Writers Museum, The
James Joyce Centre and the Hugh Lane Municipal
Gallery of Modern Art. The Custom House
and Four Courts rival the Georgian mansions of
the south in grandeur, though the Georgian architecture of Merrion
Square, Fitzwilliam Square and St
Stephen’s Green is well worth admiring. Other worthy
sights include Phoenix Park to the west, Collin’s
Barracks and the sights along the Grand Canal (the Shaw
Birthplace, Irish Jewish Museum and National
Print Museum), which loops around the
south of the centre.
Tourist
Information
Dublin Tourism Centre
Suffolk Street
Telephone: (01) 605 7700. Fax: (01) 605 7757.
Email: information@dublintourism.ie
Web site: www.visitdublin.com
Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 09:00-19:00,
Sunday 10:30-15:00 (Jul-Aug); Mon-Sat 09:00-17:30 (Sep-Jun); all
bank holidays 10:30-15:00.
There are tourist information offices at Dublin Airport, Baggot
Street Bridge, Dún Laoghaire Harbour, 14 Upper O’Connell
Street and The Square, Tallaght.
Web site: http://www.visitdublin.com/
Opening hours: Daily 07:00-18:00.
Christ Church Cathedral
Richard de Clare ‘Strongbow’ (the Earl of Pembroke)
founded the Christ
Church Cathedral on the site of a Viking church in the year
1172. Highlights include the ‘leaning wall of Dublin’,
the north nave wall, which has leaned 46cm or 18 inches since 1562
when the roof collapsed, a mummified cat and mouse found in an organ
pipe, the heart of St Laurence, the patron saint of Dublin, and
a crypt full of unusual relics.
Christchurch Place
Telephone: (01) 677 8099. Fax: (01) 679 8991.
Email: welcome@cccdub.ie
Transport: Bus 50 or 78.
Opening
hours: Monday-Friday 09:45-17:00, Saturday and Sunday 10:00-17:00
(cathedral); Monday-Friday 09:45-17:00, Saturday 10:00-16:45, Sunday
12:30-15:15 (treasury).
Admission: Free (a
donation of €3 is requested); €3 (treasury).
Dublin Castle
Dating back from Norman times, the palatial Dublin
Castle was built on the orders of King John, in 1204. The largest
remaining fragment of the original 13th-century castle is the Record
Tower. It stands alongside the 19th-century Gothic revival Chapel
Royal. Recently uncovered excavations of Viking fortifications can
be seen at the Undercroft. Most of the castle was rebuilt in the
18th century, including the gilded State Apartments which was once
the residence of English viceroys. Admission is by guided tour.
Tours run every 20 minutes and large groups need to book in advance.
Dame Street
Telephone: (01) 677 7129. Fax: (01) 679 7831.
Email: info@dublincastle.ie
Transport: Bus 50, 50A, 54, 56A, 77,
77A or 77B.
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 10:00-17:00,
Saturday and Sunday 14:00-17:00.
Admission:
€4.25 (concessions available).
Dublin
Writers Museum
Letters, first editions, portraits and memorabilia of Swift, Sheridan,
Shaw, Wilde, Joyce, Yeats, Beckett and Behan fill this fascinating
museum, set in a spectacular Georgian mansion. There is a room devoted
to children’s literature.
18-19 Parnell Square North
Telephone: (01) 872 2077. Fax: (01) 872 2231.
Email: writers@dublintourism.ie
Web site: www.writersmuseum.com
Transport: Bus 10, 11, 11A, 11B, 13, 13A, 16, 16A, 19 or
19A; DART to Connolly Station.
Opening hours:
Monday-Saturday 10:00-17:00, Sunday 11:00-17:00 (Sep-May); Monday-Saturday
10:00-18:00, Sunday 11:00-18:00.
Admission:
€6 (concessions available).
Guinness
Storehouse
This is the site of the world’s largest single beer-exporting
company began in 1759, when Arthur Guinness brewed the
first Guinness. The brewery is not open to visitors but a visit
to this interesting museum, housed in a converted warehouse and
shaped like a pint glass, tells the visitor everything they ever
wanted to know about this famous stout. The tour ends with a free
pint of the legendary black stuff.
St James’s Gate
Telephone: (01) 408 4800. Fax: (01) 408 4965.
Email: guinness-storehouse@guinness.com
Web site: www.guinness-storehouse.com
Transport: Bus 51B, 71A or 123.
Opening
hours: Daily 09:30-17:00.
Admission:
€13.50 (concessions available).
National
Museum of Ireland
Among this collection of Irish antiquities, dating back from 7000BC
to the modern day, are the eighth-century Ardagh Chalice and Tara
Brooch and the 12th-century Cross of Cong. It features the finest
collection of prehistoric gold artefacts in Europe. There are also
exhibitions on prehistoric Ireland, Viking Ireland, medieval Ireland
and on Irish history (‘The Road to Independence’) from
1900 to 1921.
Kildare Street
Telephone: (01) 677 7444. Fax: (01) 677 7450.
Web site: www.museum.ie
Transport: Bus 7, 7A, 8, 10, 11 or 13; DART
to Pearse Station.
Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday
10:00-17:00, Sunday 14:00-17:00.
Admission:
Free.
National Gallery of Ireland
This large collection incorporates some 2500 paintings, as well
as drawings, watercolours, prints and sculpture. Although Irish
painting holds pride of place, all major European schools are well
represented. A major renovation of the museum was completed in 1996
and a new extension was opened early in 2002.
Merrion Square West
Telephone: (01) 661 5133. Fax: (01) 661 5372.
Email: info@ngi.ie
Web site: www.nationalgallery.ie
Transport: Bus 5, 7, 7A, 7B, 10, 13A,
44C or 48A; DART to Pearse Station.
Opening hours:
Monday-Saturday 09:30-17:30 (until 20:30 Thursday), Sunday 12:00-17:30.
Admission: Free; a donation of €3 is
requested.
Phoenix Park –
Dublin Zoo
Europe’s largest city park boasts more than 707 hectares or
1752 acres of wilderness and landscaped gardens. Phoenix
Park is on the western edge of the city and originally
served as a royal deer park in the 17th century. Today, the Irish
president and the US Ambassador to Ireland have homes within it.
Dubliners enjoy its 12 hectares or 30 acres of landscaped gardens
with lakes, nature trails and grasslands. The old dueling ground,
Fifteen Acres, is now a popular place for casual sports while Nine
Acres is home to the Irish Polo Club. The park also contains Dublin
Zoo – home to more than 700 animals and tropical birds
and is Ireland’s top fee-paying visitor attraction.
Dublin Zoo
Phoenix Park
Telephone: (01) 677 1425. Fax: (01) 677 1660.
Email: info@dublinzoo.ie
Transport: Bus 10, 25 and 26.
Opening
hours: Daily 24 hours (Phoenix Park); Monday-Saturday 09:30-18:00,
Sunday 10:30-18:00 (Mar-Sep), Monday-Saturday 09:30-dusk, Sunday
10:30-dusk (Oct-Feb) (Zoo).
Admission: €10.10
(concessions available).
Trinity
College
One of the world’s most famous centres of learning where Jonathan
Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and many other thinkers
and writers studied at Ireland’s oldest university, which
was founded in 1592. With its cobbled squares, gardens and grand
buildings, Trinity
College retains an aura of peace, in spite its central location.
Its main attraction is the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript
dating back from around AD800, which is displayed in the Old Library.
College Street
Telephone: (01) 608 2320. Fax: (01) 608 2690.
Transport:
All cross-city buses; DART to Tara Street Station.
Opening
hours Old Library/Book of Kells: Monday-Saturday 09:30-17:00,
Sunday 09:30-16:30 (Jun-Sep); Sunday 12:00-16:30 (Oct-May).
Admission: Old Library/Book of Kells: €7;
concessions available.
Walking
Tours
Dublin Tourism has published a Ulysses Map of Dublin (€1.30),
for those who wish a self-guided walk in the footsteps of Joyce’s
famous character, Leopold Bloom.
Discover
Dublin Tours, 20 Stephen Street Lower (telephone: (01) 478 0193,
organises a two-and-a-half-hour musical pub-crawl in the Temple
Bar area for €10. Tickets are available on the night and also
from the Dublin Tourism Centre on Suffolk Street.
The
Dublin Literary Pub Crawl (telephone: (01) 670 5602; fax: (01)
670 5603 or (01) 454 5680; email: info@dublinpubcrawl.com), is a
two-hour tour featuring poetry recitals and singing, as well as
visiting Dublin’s famed pubs that have literary connections.
Tours cost €10
Reservations Network, 13 Bachelors Walk (telephone: (01) 878 7655),
operates self-guided audio tours that take about two hours; a map,
personal cassette player and an audio cassette are included in the
€8 fee.
Bus Tours
Two bus companies – Guide
Friday (telephone: (01) 872 9010); and Dublin
Bus (telephone: (01) 873 4222); have hop-on, hop-off bus tours
covering all the major sights of the city centre, with running commentary
from a tour guide. A day ticket costs €14 and tours start approximately
every 15 minutes from O’Connell Street.
Horse
and Cart Tours
Guided tours by horse and cart begin at St Stephen’s
Green during the summer months. The price (usually between
€15 and €50) should be negotiated with the driver before
setting off. |
