Few things are as synonymous with Ireland as a pint of Guinness, but there’s much more to a weekend in the capital city of Dublin than a trip to the famous Guinness Storehouse. We ventured over to Dublin to learn a little bit more about what keeps visitors coming back for more.
Getting to Dublin
Getting to Dublin is easy, with daily flights from just about every major airport in the UK. We took the short 40-minute flight across the Irish Sea from Birmingham airport, flying with Aer Lingus. Once we landed, we headed straight for the Dublin Express, a regular coach service that, for €9 (£7.50) per person, takes you directly from the airport terminal into the heart of the city in just over 20 minutes.
If you’ve never been to Dublin before and have no idea where you’re heading, there are some very helpful staff on the ticket stands who will be able to steer you in the right direction. One of the great things about Dublin, though, is that it is pretty compact, so even if you get off at the wrong stop, get a bit of guidance from Google Maps, and you’ll soon find your way to where you want to be.
Where To Stay in Dublin
You won’t be short of accommodation options in the city, with myriad hotels, aparthotels and hostels available. The multiple options also mean that there is something to fit just about all budgets, from the easyHotel Dublin
(from around £70 a night), which is about a 20-minute walk from the Temple Bar district to the much more luxurious Westbury Hotel (from £350 a night) which is a 10-minute walk from Temple Bar and Trinity College.
For our two nights in the city, we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel Dublin, which is just a few minutes walk from the bustling heart of the Temple Bar district. It offers a great balance of cost and location. It’s a rather unassuming place from the outside, but the lobby is bright and welcoming, with the rock memorabilia we’ve come to expect, the rooms are comfortable and well equipped, there’s good food and drink on site, and the staff are amiable and helpful.
Things To Do and See in Dublin
One of Dublin’s most well-known and easy-to-find streets is O’Connell Street, and it’s a great place to start exploring the city. If you’re staying outside of the city centre, the Luas trams pass through regularly, so getting to it is a breeze. There’s a lot of history here, as O’Connell Street was the setting for a significant part of the Easter Rising of 1916, with the imposing GPO building playing a pivotal role — and still showing some of the bullet holes and damage from the event.
Today, the building still houses the city’s post office, as well as one of Dublin’s newest museums, GPO Witness History. The museum tells the story of the Easter Rising and modern Irish history, using interactive exhibits alongside more traditional display cases and information boards. If you like to geek out with a bit of history or just want to get to grips with the place you’re visiting, this is a great museum. It’s a bit heavy going in places, with lots of information packed into a relatively small space, but there’s a lovely little coffee shop which you pass through on the way out, which is a welcome bonus.
If you’re still up for more museum time, head over the Liffey via O’Connell Bridge. You’ll be just a short walk from Trinity College, with the Old Library, the Book of Kells Experience, and the Little Museum of Dublin. For a more cultural experience, the National Gallery of Ireland and the Museum of Literature Ireland are also both pretty close by.
If green spaces are more your thing, Dublin has plenty of them. Merrion Square Park sits inside a beautiful block of Georgian townhouses, which used to house famous Dublin residents such as Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, and Daniel O’Connell (yes, the man with the street and the bridge named after him). The park retains lots of Georgian style and has some sculptures nestled between trees and fabulously planted flower beds.
St Stephen’s Green is just a few minutes from Merrion Square Park. Around the park, you’ll find information boards and sculptures relating to the events of 1916 and other prominent parts of Irish history.
If you’re up for venturing a little way out of the city, Glasnevin Cemetery is just a short bus ride from the centre. It might seem like an odd place to visit, but it’s crammed with some of Dublin’s most notable inhabitants: political figures like Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell, activists like Michael Collins, and contemporary figures like writer and artist Christy Brown and Luke Kelly of The Dubliners.
Not only is Glasnevin a beautiful, peaceful place, it has so many fascinating stories within its walls. We highly recommend booking a tour to get the most from your visit — we opted for the Irish History tour at €15 (£12.50) and learned so much about the individuals who played a part in making Dublin and Ireland the place it is today. The hour-and-a-half tour seemed to fly past but was well worthwhile, as we would never have found the sites we saw if left to our own devices. If you prefer independent exploration, a self-guided tour with an audio guide is also available so you can explore the huge, sprawling cemetery at your own pace.
After all that culture and history, it’s probably time for a little light refreshment alongside your entertainment. Jameson Distillery Bow Street distilled the famous whiskey from 1780 until 1970, when it outgrew the premises. Today, the former distillery is the spiritual home of Jameson’s, although the whiskey is now produced at the sister site in Midleton, County Cork. Bow Street welcomes visitors to learn about whiskey production and take part in tasting experiences and cocktail-making classes, and you can even draw your own bottle of whiskey straight from the barrel. It’s a great way to discover more about Irish whiskey alongside knowledgeable tour guides — and there’s ample opportunity to taste the liquor.
As you look around you in Dublin, you’ll notice that you’re surrounded by references to Guinness, so it would seem remiss to visit the city and not visit the home of the black stuff, the Guinness Storehouse Experience. A 20-minute stroll from Temple Bar will take you to the brewery at St James’s Gate, which has been producing Guinness since 1759.
You can opt for a self-guided tour of the site before heading up to the rooftop Gravity Bar to enjoy a pint while taking in the views across the city, or perhaps sign up for the Guinness Academy and learn to pull the perfect pint. If you would prefer a more intimate VIP visit, check out the Connoisseur Experience, which takes you through a tasting history of Guinness with an experienced guide-cum-bartender, or the Guinness Brewery Experience, which takes you on an exclusive tour through parts of the working brewery which aren’t part of the usual visitor experience. No matter how you do it, it’s well worth a visit.
Where To Eat in Dublin
As with any city, the choice of places to eat is bountiful — there are your usual suspects like McDonald’s (although you’ll find more of the local rival, Supermac’s) and Five Guys, but with such a great selection of different places available, we decided to opt for something a little different.
Our first food stop was Gallagher’s Boxty House. Boxty is a traditional Irish potato cake, which Gallagher’s Boxty House has adapted and perfected and now serves in a variety of ways, using Irish ingredients to make fabulous, filling dishes. There’s a breakfast and brunch menu, available until 3pm each day, with options from a breakfast bap made with a potato bun to buttermilk chicken served with bacon, almonds and maple syrup on a boxty pancake — both delicious. The dinner menu has boxty options galore, alongside other Irish staple dishes, so if you want to try something uniquely Irish, it is well worth a visit.
After a day of exploring Dublin’s sights — and taking more steps than the previous week combined — we found ourselves in the vibrant Temple Bar district for dinner. After much debate, we headed into The Old Storehouse Bar and Restaurant to see what was on the menu. It was a pleasing mix of traditional Irish fare, such as chowder and stews, alongside favourites like fish and chips, bangers and mash, and burgers.
My eye was immediately drawn to the traditional Guinness and Irish beef casserole, while my companion went for the Old Storehouse Irish Beef burger. While waiting for our food to arrive, we soaked up the atmosphere and listened to the live music performed on the floor below while enjoying a pint or two of Bulmers Irish Cider.
The food arrived pretty quickly and did not disappoint — the casserole was rich, dark, and divine, topped with fabulously creamy mashed potato. The burger and chips were rather more mainstream but well-cooked and tasty. Given that The Old Storehouse is located in Temple Bar, it is bustling and busy, but the staff were well on the ball, and the service was great.
While the tourist traps of Temple Bar are hit and miss, with the Old Storehouse being a definite win, there’s no doubt who the restaurants at the Guinness Storehouse visitor experience are appealing to. Despite the obvious target market, quality was surprisingly good, with the 1873 Bar & Brasserie offering traditional Irish fare, most involving a little flavour enhancement thanks to liberal dashes of Guinness. The Guinness-braised Skeganore duck leg, served with poached pear, pickled walnut, potato croquettes and pak choi, all on a bed of black lentils, deserves particular praise.
Where To Drink in Dublin
With more than 770 pubs in the city, you’ll have no trouble finding somewhere to quench your thirst. Pubs and bars abound, and a surprising number of them have live music on most nights, so you’re in for a great night wherever you choose.
If you are in the Temple Bar district, you should drop into the iconic Temple Bar Pub, even if it is just for one drink. We were there on a Wednesday night in early March, and it was busy, but we managed to get a seat and listen to the eclectic music set performed on the stage in the corner of the bar. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to hear a couple of middle-aged Irish guitar-playing musicians performing songs by One Direction, U2 and Bob Dylan in the same set, but this is Dublin, and it worked wonderfully.
In addition to the more traditional pubs and bars, there are some great cocktail bars in the city, too. Nestled in the basement of the historical Stephen’s Green Hibernian Club, you’ll find an incredibly elegant, chilled bar known as 9 Below.
9 Below is sleek and opulent, with an art deco feel but with a modern twist. With its low-level lighting and perfectly judged background music, there’s a lovely relaxed and intimate vibe, and the comfortable seating and great cocktails make it a place that it’s very easy to spend too much time in.
The best bars are always the ones which are recommended to you, and the Vintage Cocktail Club, in the heart of Temple Bar, is no exception. The first challenge, though, is to find it. Most bars are highlighted with bright neon signs or have names emblazoned on the outside, but the VCC has none of those; it’s simply a black door on a black wall, with three small, slightly wonky letters and a doorbell to one side. We took a chance and rang the doorbell, and as luck would have it, there was a table free for the 9pm sitting. With no idea quite what to expect, we climbed the stairs and were led into a candlelit maze of little rooms with a prohibition-era, speakeasy vibe about them.
Our table was by the bar, giving us a fabulous view of the accomplished mixologist flipping, shaking and pouring the cocktails, the list of which seemed endless.
VCC is quirky and fun but also extremely popular, so there are timed sittings for entry. Be sure to book ahead if you do want to visit — it’s worth it for the experience alone, but throw in the fabulous cocktails, and you’re definitely onto a winner.
