Travel Guides | Dublin Travel Guide
Dublin Travel Guide
The word on the street
This is the city that formed the backdrop to some of Ireland’s defining events, including the Easter Rising of 1916, and that fathered such cultural icons as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan and U2. Dublin was once the most important city after London in an empire on which the sun never set – and it still has the architecture to prove it. Dublin’s history is written in its streets, from the shell-scarred pillars of the General Post Office to the rejuvenated alleys of Temple Bar, not to mention the church spires and building cranes that punctuate the city’s skyline.
Dubliners
Dublin’s citizens are still coming to terms with the changes thrust upon them since the economic and cultural renaissance of the 1990s. House prices have risen beyond the means of many residents, local haunts have been tarted up into tourist honey-pots and the streets are filled with map-clutching newcomers. Yet, despite it all, Dubliners retain that civilized grace and ironic, self-deprecating humour that have seen the city through so many hard times. For all the weighty history and the shiny new street life, it is the people of Dublin who remain the city’s greatest asset.
Drinking it in
No visit to Dublin would be complete without spending time in some of the city’s 1,000-plus pubs. A Dublin pub is an excellent place to experience the craic – that quintessentially Irish sense of bonhomie that improves as the evening wears on and the glasses empty. Dublin has pubs to suit every taste, from Victorian gems to 21st-century wannabes, elegant lounge bars to spit-and-sawdust dives. There are bars for the early morning and the late night, for listening to music or watching the big match, for soaking up literary history or indulging in quiet conversation; bars for a quick tipple, a long lunch or a whole evening’s drinking.
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