Retake the City: Dublin

by Alex in Retake the City, Ireland

If you decide to travel to Ireland (and you should - seriously, this country is gorgeous), you're almost certainly going to pass through Dublin. While you may be tempted to skip through the capital city in a rush to get to the picturesque rolling hills and ruined castles, I'd urge you to reconsider.  

Dublin is a great city, and well worth taking a few days to explore - no other major city in Ireland is so accommodating to travellers, with great historical sites and a plethora of shops and bars and restaurants.

And as ever, I will be your sensible, responsible, mature tour guide!

 

Stay:

Compared to other Irish cities, Dublin is freaking huge. So while finding a place to stay is relatively easy - finding a place to stay that isn't miles from where you want to be is a bit less pain-free. Dorm beds in these areas can fill up very quickly, especially for weekends, so be sure to book in advance. If you turn up in the city at the last minute, you can probably still find a bed, but you're likely to stay somewhere pretty damn dodgy, or end up forced into a hotel with hotel prices.

Four Courts Hostel: 
Of all the temple bar hostels - this one one of the best priced, and as a bonus it is on the outskirts of the party district, which means you can get a good night's sleep sans drunk college students (well, as much as any hostel is sans drunk college students). This hostel was really great, the common areas are large and sociable, and it has a good kitchen, decent wifi and free storage lockers under the beds. The only drawback for us was that the wifi didn't quite reach our dorm room, which was on the far side of the building. However, the common area was fun to hang out in, and their rates are some of the best in Dublin, from around €13-18 Euro per night. 

St Patrick's Cathedral

Abrahams hostel:
A quirky but really good hostel on Lower Gardiner Street, just a short walk from O'Connell St. This was my favourite hostel in Dublin. The place is a labyrinth, with two separate wings of three story each of dorms rooms (from €16 per night) and private rooms (from €50 per night). The kitchen and main common room are decent, if slightly small, but most of the hall areas are converted to quasi-common rooms with comfy couches and power sockets. The room we stayed in had no wifi, but the common areas are well covered and the connection is extremely fast. Drawback for me was that you have to hand your key in to the front desk anytime you want to leave. The reception staff then give you a ticket which you have to hold on to and give back in exchange for the key when you return. It's fantastic security, but kind of a pain in the ass.

National Library of Ireland

Spire Hostel:
This hostel... kinda sucked. The location is brilliant, just off O'Connell St, close to the Spire it is named after, but it is small, crowded and claustrophobic. However it does have free wifi, a really good luggage storage room and decent sized beds. All of that doesn't exactly make up for the tight staircases, tiny common areas and the dorms with one-too-many bunk beds that make the whole place feel claustrophobic, particularly in the morning or early evening when most people are there. Personally, I couldn't get past the fact that the ensuite bathroom in the mixed dorms don't have locks. Call me crazy, but I consider that to be something of an issue. If that doesn't faze you, or if the decent places are taken, however, they have dorms available from €14 and privates from €26 per night.

The Grand Post Office, O'Connell St - the site of, well, a lot of important history.

 

Get around:

I may have mentioned earlier - Dublin is freaking huge, and while it is pretty flat, it can be a pain to walk across. The streets are fairly pedestrian-friendly and easy to navigate, but once you leave Temple Bar and Grafton St on the south bank or O'Connell St on the north bank, everything is a lot more spread out than it seems.

If you are only staying in Dublin for a few days to a week, the best way to get around is on a hop-on hop-off tour bus. While there are two main companies, locally known as the red one or the green one. They are both similarly priced at €22 for two days. We went with the green one - since their live commentary is awesome - and it is great value for money since some of the best sites are pretty far from each other.

If you are there for longer, Dublin's bus network is extensive, covering pretty much every inch of the inner and greater city. But with over 100 routes, it can be confusing if you're only passing through the city. I recommend using Google Maps to help you figure out which bus line to take. After living in Dublin for 4 months, that's still how we do it! Single trips will cost between €1.80 and €3.60, and tickets are available on the bus if you have correct change.

There is also a tram (LUAS) and train (DART) system however they are both relatively useless for inner city travel. The tram system is incredibly limited, and the trains are both expensive and have very few stops within the CBD (and the stops they do have are not very convenient).

Eat:

Irish pubs are everywhere along the main pedestrian shopping districts (and a lot of them named Mulligan's, for some reason...), and they all offer some variation on the traditional pub menu. Unfortunately, the pubs tend to be ridiculously overpriced and every meal we've had in one has been okay at best - not terrible, but certainly not amazing.

Fortunately, Dublin is also home to the majority of Ireland's alternate cuisines. For a good cheap lunch there is excellent pizza to be found just off O'Connell St for €4 with a Coke. For a decent sit down meal most head down to Temple Bar, Dublin's party district. Prices range from cheaper €10-15 mains, to mid-range €20-25. There are some really excellent places, however chances are you will find it overcrowded by other loud tourists and drunk college students.

While there's plenty of similarly-priced food to be found dotted through the rest of the city, one to note in particular is Parnell St on the north bank, which serves as Dublin's miniature Chinatown. As much as it is around five very cheap, decent Chinese restaurants in a row.

James Joyce statue, Henry Street. At Christmas he wears a santa hat!

 

See:

There's heaps to do in Dublin - literally something for everyone. Some of you may already be familiar with some we mentioned on our epic roadtrip, specifically the Trinity College Library, the Guinness Storehouse and Kilmainham Gaol.

If you're the drinking crowd - and let's face it, Dublin is a Mecca for tourists with a mindin' for imbibin' - then there's the Guinness Storehouse and the Old Jameson Distillery which you can tour (for €18 & €15, respectively), as well as the aforementioned Temple Bar where you can do your actual drinking.

The Rooftop Bar of the Guinness Storehouse

For history buffs, there are monuments and statues to famous Dubliners all over the city, as well as sights famous for their roles in Ireland's independence movement (and all the complications therein). If that is a point of interest for you, there is also the Glasnevin cemetery slightly out of the city, where some of the most famous Irishmen are interred, including Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins. For fans of the outdoors there is Merrion Square - with the ever so colourful Oscar Wilde presiding - as well as St Stephens Green and the massive Phoenix Park which boasts its own herd of deer and a zoo.

the ever so voyeuristic Oscar Wilde statue, Merrion Square

Fans of museums can visit the National Museum, the Science Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as the beautiful National Library (with their award winning - and free - Yeats exhibit), the aforementioned Trinity College, as well as the small but beautiful Marsh's Library near St Patrick's Cathedral that was formerly curated by Jonathan Swift.

...where they totally let you practice using a quill, which we did. Because we're massive dorks.

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