13 must do’s in Dublin | Ireland

My brother and I decided to go on a city trip together, but where to? We both love to drink beer (as a Belgian that’s just in our nature) and we also wanted to see a bit of green. Dublin (in Gaelic Baile Átha Cliath) was our salvation.

When going to Ireland, keep in mind that they drive on the left side of the road, they do not have European sockets and there is a time difference (GMT+1).

We stayed in My Place Dublin Hotel & Apartments for 4 nights. Dublin is divided by the Liffey river. Our hotel was located on the north side, so did the Jameson Distillery and the O’Connell shopping street. The south side has the famous temple bar, Guinness Brewery, Trinity College and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Overall you can visit Dublin City in 2 days for sure.

Northside! Old side?

1) Samuel Beckett Bridge

On our first day, we decided to do the north side first. The northside walk will last 3 hours. We started our tour at the Samuel Beckett Bridge. The bridge resembles a harp which is the emblem of the Irish Free state.

Fun fact: Guinness also uses a harp, but they used it first and got a copyright on the harp. So, when Ireland wanted to use the harp, they just flipped the harp: the Guinness harp has the arch on the right, while the national emblem has the arch on the left.

2) Custom House and famine sculptures

On your way to the Custom House, you’ll pass the famine sculptures and the Jeannie Johnston tall ship, a replica of an immigrant boat. Unfortunately, the boat tour was closed.

3) Ha’Penny Bridge

We crossed the O’Connell street to walk on the Liffey boardwalk to reach the Ha’Penny Bridge. The merchant’s bow is on the south side of the Ha’Penny bridge. That bridge was the first pedestrian bridge to replace ferries for crossing over. Everybody had to pay a halfpenny (that’s why it is called the Ha’Penny bridge).

4) O’Connell Street

Walking down O’Connell street, you’ll find restaurants, pubs, shops, the Millennium Spire and the General Post office. If you just keep running straight as Forrest Gump does, you’ll end up at the Garden of remembrance, a memorial garden in Dublin dedicated to the memory of “all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish Freedom”.

Henrietta Street is a bit isolated. The old Georgian styled houses were quite dilapidated. At the end of the street, you can walk through the King’s Inns, a law institution, and end up in its park.

5) Jameson Distillery

Between the King’s Inns and the Jameson distillery, you won’t see any touristic sights. The Jameson Distillery is, in my opinion, one of the highlights Dublin has to offer. The bar has been renovated and is ultra-modern.

We booked (in advance) the Jameson experience which provides a fully guided tour, a comparative whiskey tasting, and a free whiskey drink. You’ll undergo a customer experience which is just WOW. They use videos and virtual content to do a presentation of Jameson’s history. At a certain moment, we had to stand at a station, where we could interact with the ingredients of Jameson whiskey. You can touch, smell the barley and see the process of whiskey making.

The tour ended with a comparative whiskey tasting between Irish whiskey (Jameson), Scotch whisky (notice they spell whiskey different, Johnnie Walker) and American whiskey (Jack Daniel’s).

Fun fact: If you want to know whether your whiskey is cheap or not, you must roll your glass, to create a thin border of whiskey in your glass. If it takes some time for the whiskey to form little drops, your whiskey is of great quality.

My conclusions about the comparative tasting are that I preferred the Irish and American whiskey the most. The Scottish whiskey had a barbecue, or wood-burned taste, which I did not love and neither did my stomach.

After the comparative tasting, we got ourselves our free drink at JJ’s bar. I took the Jameson Ginger and Lime cocktail, while my brother drank the Jameson on the rocks. If you return to the O’Connell street, you’ll pass the Four Courts of Ireland. If you walk past it after your Jameson Experience as I did, you’ll do it with a lot of giggles and happy feelings!

Southside! Tourist side?

The south side can be spread over 1.5 days. After our Jameson experience, we went to the temple bar while passing by the Christ Church Cathedral, which is famous for its bridge above the road. If you walk down the Lord Edward street, you’ll end up at the Dublin city hall and the famous Queen of tarts shop.

Follow the arch behind the city hall to end up at Dublin castle. Walking down this road will lead you to Trinity College, the bank of Ireland and Grafton street (another shopping street with a nearby park).

6) The Guinness Storehouse

On your second day in Dublin, you can finish off the south side. We started our day by spending some time in the Guinness Storehouse. You can easily spend 2 hours in there, because of its 7 levels: Ingredients, Brewing, Tasting rooms, Advertising, Guinness Academy, Bar & Restaurant and the Gravity bar.

On the second floor, you can do a tasting of Guinness, which was not as good as the Jameson tasting but still quite lovely. On the third floor, you’ll see a timeline and examples of Guinness advertising. You can also take pictures in their photo booth but the quality was not that great. On the fourth floor, you can learn how to pour your own perfect pint of Guinness. You’ll even get a certificate!

After serving your perfect pint of Guinness, you can drink it in the gravity bar and enjoy a panoramic view (360°). That day was also the day the Irish would play rugby against the Italians, so there were a lot of Irish supporters in Guinness and in Dublin city. Green was for sure the color of that day!

Fun fact: To keep ourselves in the green spirit, we even wore our green sweaters to ‘blend’ in. That did not work because of our language and well yes… our big camera 😉

To keep the green spirit alive, we went to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (quite a distance) to do our pray (okay I lied, we enjoyed the sun instead).

7) Trinity college

We moved on and went to Trinity College for a second time. This time to visit the Old Library (a.k.a. Long Room) which contains the Book of Kells. The book of Kells is a manuscript containing the 4 Gospels of the New Testament. 2 Gospels are displayed in the library. The Long Room itself was for a long time on my bucket list and boy it did not let me down!

The room is as you could have expected; long and old. You can even smell the old books (that old smell you have when you find a newspaper in your basement for example). The Old Room also contains the oldest medieval Gaelic harp on which the national emblem is based on.

PUBS!

8) Temple bar

You can eat a lovely dinner at Quays Pub before visiting The Temple Bar. The Temple Bar is the most famous bar in Dublin due to its enormous advertising at airports and on social media. The pub was very crowded (9 pm) and the prices were rather pricey (€8 for a pint of Guinness). Every evening there is a live band playing. If you want to have a table, you’ll have to be early otherwise you’ll just stand in doorways due to the lack of space. The ambiance in the pub is great, everybody is singing along and when they played Galway girl by Steven Ears, the whole pub went mad including me. I knew this song from the movie P.S. I love you. The vibe of that scene in the movie was just the same as in that pub, loved it!

9) Oliver St. John Gogarty pub

We decided to trade the crowded place for Oliver St. John Gogarty pub. Prices were the same as in the temple bar but there was more space. The band that played did not have a banjo but a violin this time, which added a great vibe to the Irish songs. People even started dancing in this pub, which was quite lovely!

10) The Brazen Head

After our magnificent walk, we went off to The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin, to watch the rugby match. The pub is quite lovely and not that crowded like The Temple Bar. The Irish won, so that meant one thing: drinking all night long.

11) Murray’s bar

Murray’s bar has a band that plays from 9PM-10PM and restarts at 11 PM. Irish dancers will enlighten you with their Irish Dance between the hours of 10PM-11PM. Definitely a must-see! During the evening I got the chance to talk to an Irish couple who were also visiting Dublin. They told us their 3 daughters were professional Irish dancers (we got some experts over here) and that the dancers of the pub were doing it amazingly well!

12) The Celt

The pub we loved the most was The Celt! We took our Smithwick’s and stood aside the bar to behold the ambiance when suddenly a woman started dancing. A local started to chat with us, Connor, who was very kind to us. We spoke about the differences between Belgium and Ireland, the Pubs and more. He even taught us a bit of Gaelic, by which we return him the favor with Dutch lessons.

The Ha’Penny Bridge is pronounced as ‘Hey Penny’, Moher is pronounced as ‘more’ and not ‘mo heir’. So, Connor if you are reading this, let us know when you’re in Belgium so we can let you taste some good beers 😉 Just kidding, the Irish beer is also good, but yeah, Belgian Beers are doing better at the World beer awards than Irish Beers 😉

Day extra?

If you want to see some nature be sure to book a trip to the cliffs of Moher or to Glendalough (the Wicklow Mountains, the setting of P.S. I love you). We were dying to see the cliffs of Moher, you can read all about it in this next post. 

Read more about my day excursion to the Cliffs of Moher in this special blog post!
» Cliffs of Moher | Ireland «

What didn’t we do?

We didn’t have enough time to do some things like the Kilmainham gaol (a prison, highly recommended by our guide but you must reserve your ticket one day ahead), North Bull Island (UNESCO heritage, by train), Howth (also accessible by train), Leinster House (Parliament). If you do have the time make sure to check them out!

Be sure to visit Ireland someday! I loved its nature, loved its pubs and the people there are so kind! One last thing to say: Is toigh leam èirinn!

(meaning: I love Ireland)

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