A YORKSHIREMAN'S TRAVEL GUIDE
Dublin, Ireland
October 2023
First Thoughts
Dublin was an odd one – I initially looked at going somewhere in half-term when talked into it by a friend who suggested doing something for half-term. I was inspired by his suggestion, and started to wonder ‘what’s the cheapest possible trip abroad that I could do?’. After looking on the website Skyscanner for cheap flights, I found out that I could get from Birmingham, UK to Dublin, Ireland, for a delightful £21 (not including luggage and insurance).
I knew for several reasons that this would be a slightly odd trip; it was my first time travelling entirely on my own, having travelled out on my own during my previous trip to Switzerland, but having then met people I knew once in the country. It was also my first time travelling since I’d decided to create this blog, and I knew that I’d have both of those factors in the back of my mind the entire time. I knew of Ireland, it’s the closest country to my own, but as I started prepping and planning for the trip, I realized that I knew very little about Ireland’s culture, history or even its relationship to the UK.
Ahead of the trip, I sat down and planned my own full (admittedly perhaps too full) itinerary that was certainly going to change all that.
Day One
I departed on a wet Tuesday morning. My father and I arrived at our local train station in the morning together, and then he went one way to work, and I went the other way, to Birmingham Airport. Before long, I was in Birmingham Airport, and boarding a Ryanair flight of 50 minutes over to the Republic of Ireland. On the way, I had just long enough to read a couple of chapters of my book and take some great photos out of the plane window. Whilst the weather seemed lovely in the air, stepping out of the plane we were met by a drizzle of rain. “At least the weather’s familiar,” I said to the man behind me in a typical middle-aged man way.
Upon arriving in Dublin, I boarded a Dublin Express coach into the city centre. As we arrived in Dublin, I was pleasantly surprised by the architecture, a lot of older buildings, and lower, with no skyscrapers, in comparison to UK cities of a similar size. I arrived at my hostel, Jacobs Inn, a small but nice hostel, very close to Custom House, and the first stop in the city for the coach. After checking in, I took to the streets of Dublin to find myself some food, and luckily for me, there were familiar shops; Tescos, Aldi, and Lidl. I bought myself a set of meal deals for each lunch across the three days and headed onto The Dublin Spire. The Spire is awesome in size, and represents nothing but ‘Dublin’s ability to persevere and continue’. From there, as it started to get dark, I went on to The Hungry Tree, a tree in King’s Inn Park, which had started to envelop the metal bench in front of it.
Dublin has no underground train system like London or Berlin, but instead, it has a fairly reliable tram system, called The Luas. I bought myself a weeklong Luas flexi-ticket and took the next tram back to the stop nearest the hostel. That evening had been the one I’d planned to eat dinner in the hostel, chill, and get to know fellow travellers, but when travelling, things rarely go exactly as planned. When I came downstairs to the main dining room of the hostel during the middle of their advertised dining hours, I found they were playing host to their local bingo night; everyone in the room was playing, and every table was full. I decided to head into the city again, and try to find somewhere nearby and cheap to get some dinner on my own, when I saw it, greater than any mirage. WETHERSPOONS. They have them in Ireland! I took dinner in this Irish Wetherspoons, picking menu choices that I wouldn’t have been able to find back home. Thoroughly pleased with this choice, I headed back to the hostel tired from the journey and packing late the night before, I was asleep by 10 pm.
Images
- Top Left: View from my flight from Birmingham to Dublin
- Top Right Custom House
- Bottom Left: The Dublin Spire
- Bottom Right: The Hungry Tree
Day Two
Day Two had been the day in my itinerary where I’d easily packed the most in, as my ‘day to see all the big things’. After breakfast at the Jacobs Inn, I caught a Luas tram to Trinity College, the University of Dublin’s only campus. Through the hustle and bustle of the College’s main courtyard, I met the tour guide, a student at the university himself, who took me and others around the key parts of the college. He regaled us with interesting stories about the history of the college and pointed out that there was graduation on for the current European studies (Social Science and MFL) students. This graduation, apart from the reading of the awards, would entirely take place in Latin, something that made me entirely grateful that my graduations had not been.
After a tour of the main site, we were left to explore the University Library ourselves, including the famous Long Room, where of course I got my photo taken. From the University, I headed south, ticking off several places on my bucket list, including Bram Stoker’s House, The National Library of Ireland, Oscar Wilde’s House, and I did a quick look in, of course, Dublin’s Natural History Museum. Dublin’s Natural History Museum is a tiddler compared to the ones in Berlin or London and reminded me more of the NHM at Tring in England. I had a quick chat with the receptionist, who agreed that London’s museum had become almost too big and busy for its own good. After this whistle-stop tour of the area, I had lunch by the Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture in the corner of Merrion Square, a small park right next to the Irish government offices, before heading on to my next stop.
In the afternoon I headed into The Temple Bar area, where I visited the Irish Rock n Roll Museum, a fascinating little museum that also operates as a rehearsal space, a recording studio, and a performance space. The museum tour covered all these areas, as well as two exhibit rooms, one dedicated to U2 and one to Thin Lizzy. Our guide explained that Michael Jackson had been the biggest artist to record at their studios, and my favourite band Muse had been the biggest artist to use their performance space, to play their 2003 album Absolution for the first time. On from the Rock n Roll Museum, I went to my final big stop of the day, the Guinness Storehouse Experience, a building Guinness has on a 9,000-year lease from 1759 onwards. The Storehouse is not strictly any one thing, composed of a huge shop, a multi-floor museum, several eateries, and add-on experiences. My highlight was the bar on the top floor, where visitors can get a drink (I chose Guinness, obviously) and walk around the top of the building, taking in the sights of Dublin from one of the city’s tallest buildings.
Finally, I made my way back to the hostel, stopping on the way in the Temple Bar area, and having a drink in two pubs - Darkey Kelley’s, a bar a friend had recommended before visiting, as it was named after a famous Dublin witch, and of course, Temple Bar itself. I was surprised by both of the bars being packed to the brim by people from all over the world (In Darkey Kelley’s I had an American couple sat to one side of me, and a young Canadian lady to the other) on a Wednesday night, as well as very competent Irish folk band playing in both bars. May that’s due to how touristy the area was, or maybe the Irish just know how to have a good time.
Photos:
- Top Left: The Long Room at Trinity College
- Top Right: Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture in Merrion Square
- Bottom Left: The Irish Rock n Roll Museum
- Bottom Right: Dublin's Guinness Open Gate Brewery
Day Three
Day three began a little more slowly, it was my only real rest during the trip, so I spent the morning in bed for as long as I could get away with, before breakfasting, showering and heading out, taking the red Luas line to a huge station called Dublin Heuston. From Heuston, I headed north of the River Liffey towards Phoenix Park, and put on my shades for possibly the nicest day of the trip in terms of weather. My first stop was the enormous Wellington monument, dedicated to Dubliner Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, leader of the British forces at the Battle of Waterloo. From there, I headed up to the centre of Phoenix Park, which is Dublin's, and as it turns out, Europe’s, largest city park. Phoenix Park is huge, over five kilometres across, and right in the centre is Aras an Uachtarain, the house of the President of Ireland, which, unfortunately for me, is closed on weekdays for tours to the general public.
After lunch in front of the President’s house, I headed across the park to Dublin Zoo, the largest zoo in the entire country. The Zoo was a mix; unfortunately, the weather had made a turn for the worst, and several of the larger animals were no-shows. Luckily the great apes still made an appearance, and were some of the highlights of my trip around the place. As well as this, Dublin housed some animals I’d not seen elsewhere, such as wolves, red pandas, and snow leopards, all of which made an interesting addition to my time there. After a quick coffee, I headed on to the Discovery Centre, a small museum with stuffed animals where a young member of staff explained that the Zoo had received several donations from the Natural History Museum that I’d visited the previous day. Other stuffed animals in their collection had been at the Zoo in the past and then died, being preserved at the centre, something I found rather morbid. At the end of the Zoo, unfortunately, the shop was closed due to technical issues, so I moved on to my evening activities.
I took the Luas tram again, followed by a bus, into the city centre, back to the temple bar area, where I was going to see one of my favourite comedians, Omid Djalili at Vicar Street Theatre. Arriving at Vicar Street, I had a ‘Wowburger’ (it was a cheeseburger) for dinner in the pub next to the theatre, a place called John’s Bar and Haberdashery, which in its back room was mocked up to look exactly like an American diner. Vicar Street itself was also odd, with tables laid out across the floor, and I ended up sitting with a young Irish couple from Kilkenny. Omid raised the roof of course, using a blend of new material as well as his classics (foreign accent syndrome comes to mind) and gave me a memorable experience as my first time seeing live stand-up comedy. From Vicar Street, I ended up walking to the nearest Luas stop, through the Temple Bar area and by chance passed by The Brazen Head, Ireland’s oldest pub. Being my final night, I treated myself to one more Guinness and a set of live Irish pub music surrounded by suits of armour and old Irish signs and maps.
Photos:
- Top right: The Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park
- Top left: Aras an Uachtarain, the President's House
- Bottom right: Red Pandas in Dublin Zoo
- Bottom left: The Brazen Head pub
Day Four
Day four began with packing up my bags, and checking out of the hostel, having eaten a smoked salmon bagel (the hostel’s special bagel choice), I took a short walk with all my luggage and blistered feet over to the nearby EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum. This was a huge, recently created museum covering the history of people leaving Ireland to make a life elsewhere, and their descendants. A very visual museum, it had a clear appeal to families, with interactive boards, quizzes and changing light displays. Luckily for me, there was still enough to engage adult travel nerds who were there on their own; I found out that not only did Joe Biden have Irish ancestry (which I knew), but so did Obama, Reagan and Kennedy. It made me think that there are not many countries, particularly in the West, that could fill such a large museum about success that their citizens had found moving to other, larger countries.
After midday, I left the Custom Quay, taking a Luas down to St. Stephen’s Green, another small park south of the River Liffey, where I decided to have my final park-based lunch. While perhaps the most visually stunning of all of the Dublin city parks that I had visited on the trip, St. Stephen’s Green also happened to be home to nine-tenths of the city’s Seagull population, and after one managed to get a bite of my egg sandwich, I entertained the people of Dublin by fighting off an entire flock of the birds with my water bottle.
Across the road from St. Stephen’s Green was the final attraction of my trip, a tour of The Little Museum of Dublin, a smaller museum which used to be a large house in days gone by. In the Museum, I and others were met by our decidedly eccentric tour guide, who had clearly missed his calling as a professional actor, who gave us a ‘walking lecture’ around the main two rooms within the Museum. Afterwards, I went down to the shop, and bought a book by the museum’s creator, impressed by the passion and care that all the Museum’s staff seemed to have for their city. One of them told me to "enjoy my stay", to which I told him that it was the end of my stay and I was heading to the airport, he said, "You picked to learn about Dublin's history at the end, how weird".
I bought a coffee in a lovely café, Tang, next to the Museum, took one last look at St. Stephen’s Green, and as the clock struck 3 pm on Friday, I decided to make a move back to Blighty. The following adventure involved taking two Luas trams, the Dublin Express coach, the plane back to Birmingham, a bus to the arrivals (as the terminal had closed), the Birmingham airport monorail, two trains to get me to Crewe and then finally a taxi back to my parent’s house, getting in the door at 11.30 pm. Exhausted, I threw myself in the shower and went straight to sleep. Next time I go to Ireland, I thought, I’ll drive and just get on the ferry.
Photos:
- Top right: Triumphal Arch
- Top left: EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum
- Bottom right: Me and Bono in the Little Museum of Dublin
- Bottom left: St. Stephen's Green
Final Thoughts
Dublin, I have decided, was a mixed trip. There were shortcomings to the trip, but most of these, I must admit, were partly my own doing; a mix-up with my SIM cards left me with no ability to make or receive calls, or use my internet data. Luckily I’d been prepared by chance, and had tickets, maps and guides all printed out to use anyway. I just had to hope that nothing serious at all would go wrong, and luckily for me, it didn’t. Travelling on my own, I’d also filled my itinerary to the brim, making myself even busier than on my previous Berlin trip, but once I’d recovered from my blisters, I decided that the number of things I saw was certainly worth it.
The weather, the shops, and also the attitudes, are very familiar – everyone is nice and polite until they get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, it would seem. Everyone I met during my trip to the capital was friendly and seemed proud to be from Dublin, something that can’t be said for every capital city in the UK. The range of large, interesting but often understated tourist attractions gives the city a reasonably unique feeling too, making it a nice alternative to cities like London or Edinburgh. It feels similar but different to be in the UK – a nice happy medium if you fancy a foreign holiday but don’t want to have to deal with anything particularly ‘foreign’ apart from the currency.
Useful Links
https://www.skyscanner.net/ - Skyscanner, the website to use to find the cheapest flights from anywhere to anywhere else
https://www.visitdublin.com/ - Dublin's official tourism website
https://www.dublin.info/ - Dublin's tourist information homepage
https://www.luas.ie/ - Luas Tram system homepage
https://www.dublinpublictransport.ie/ - Dublin Public Transport page
https://www.irelandbeforeyoudie.com/ - Ireland vacation planning website
https://jacobsinn.com/dublin/ - Jacob's Inn Dublin hostel website
