FCUS GUIDES

Located on Ireland's eastern shore, Dublin started life 1000 years ago as a Viking settlement. Over the centuries it was taken over by a succession of conquerors and colonists, especially the English, whose period of rule left many scars but some positive legacies as well, including the dignified Georgian architecture that now gives the city much of its charm and character. Many of its landmarks and memorials recall the bloody but eventually successful struggle to drive the British out, but today there's no ill-feeling at all towards British, with whom Ireland now has close ties and cordial relations. Dublin's population today is about 1 million, and the Irish name of the city is Baile Atha Cliath.

Dublin Tourism's main office is in Suffolk Street, in the city centre south of the river (tel. 01 605 7700).
  Best buy from the tourist office is a Dublin Pass, giving free entry to more than 30 sights and attractions.
  Book Dublin accommodation many weeks in advance. For information on accommodation, travel to Dublin, and what you'll find when you get there, click on
www.visitdublin.com (Dublin Tourist Board)
www.discoverireland.ie/ (Irish Tourist Board)

The centre of Dublin is the busy, crowded area on both sides of O'Connell Bridge over the River Liffey (picturesque "Ha'penny Bridge" and the newer Millennium Bridge are two pedestrian bridges just upstream). North of the river is broad O'Connell Street, Dublin's magnificent principal boulevard with a wide central pavement under a row of trees. South of the river is a more atmospheric, historic district (in effect, Dublin's Old Quarter), with Temple Bar on one side, running down towards Trinity College. The tourist office is on the south side, in a former church in Suffolk St. Some sights on the western edges of town are best reached by catching a bus along the riverside.

Whatever the changes, Dublin's greatest attractions are still people, music and pubs.
  Really, there can't be another city anywhere with as many pubs per head. There are about one thousand altogether. For masses of atmosphere and great craíc, push open the door into almost any of them.                               
  The very best are gorgeous unmodernised places gleaming with mirrors, mahogany and brass. Come the evening, and in the daytime too, many of the city's pubs settle down with some live music, usually foot-tapping folksy traditional Irish styles.                                  
  The Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub (opened 1688), has music most nights. Or join the throng listening in the Victorian bars of The Oliver St John Gogarty, one of the very best for traditional Irish music. Round the corner at crowded Fitzsimons, a trio of musicians play jigs, while a quartet of girls do a Riverdance-style routine like firecrackers in short dresses.
  As well as music, there's the written word. Obviously the city of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Brendan Behan, Sean O'Casey, W.B.Yeats and Samuel Beckett loves literature and has quite a cultured air - see more at the Dublin Writers' Museum and Irish Writers' Centre, both in Parnell Sq.
  Drama seems to be a local speciality, and it's fun to see a play while you're here. There's usually something good on at the prestigious Abbey Theatre. Other theatres with programmes worth checking are the Gate and the Gaiety.

Most of the time, it feels like nowhere in Dublin is more than a short distance away, and it's a pleasure to walk in the city centre. However, for the Guinness Brewery you might want to catch a bus. For longer and faster trips around the city, use Dublin's superb DART urban railway.

The Clarence Hotel  6-8 Wellington Quay, Dublin 2, Tel. 01 407 0800. A sense of fine quality pervades this renowned city centre luxury hotel, part of the Dublin scene for 150 years, now owned by Irish rock group U2.
www.theclarence.ie

The Morgan Hotel 10 Fleet St, Dublin 2, tel. 01 679 3939. A little bit of designer chic, well placed in Temple Bar, comfortable, stylish rooms.
www.themorgan.com

Dublin has very good transport links to the UK, with two ferry routes and flights to nearly 40 British airports, with several daily connections. Flight time is around one hour. Basic no-frills airline Ryanair have rock-bottom fares and service to match. I prefer Aer Lingus, who provide full service and also have very low fares and lots of special offers.
www.aerlingus.com. 

- Where is it?
  It's the capital of Ireland, on the east coast.
- International phone dialling code:
  00 353.
- Time zone:
  GMT/BST (same as UK).
- Money:
  Euro (€).

- Don't ask for a "beer" - what kind do you want? Guinness is the rich, dark, locally brewed stout. If you really have no idea, the barman will be happy to explain, especially if you buy a pint for himself.
- A "half a pint" of beer is called a "glass". But for a pint, ask for a pint!
- Craíc (pronounced 'crack') is pure Irish for good drink, good company and good times - usually accompanied by good music.

 Guinness Storehouse -
 The Guinness Experience 
The Guinness Storehouse is Dublin's number one attraction. Its 6-storey exhibition gives a fascinating glimpse into the mysterious alchemy of ingredients in Ireland's favourite glass. The twin secrets seems to be the water (from St James' Spring, 25 miles west) and the carefully tended yeast culture (still the one Arthur Guinness borrowed from a neighbour in 1759). A waterfall and an atrium-sized beer barrel combine with genuine historical artefacts like Arthur Guinness's cluttered desk, and the lease he signed entitling him to make beer here ... for 9,000 years! The exhibition spirals up through the building to the rooftop Gravity Bar, where they hand you "the perfect pint" - free of charge. The bar also enjoys the perfect view of Dublin, a 360-degree glass-walled panorama taking in the whole city, the dark shapes of the Wicklow Mountains and the Irish Sea beyond.
www.guinnessstorehouse.com/

 Temple Bar 
Running along the south bank of the River Liffey, Temple Bar's cobbled lanes have become the vivacious focal point for the arts and the avant-garde, as well as a multitude of pubs and restaurants. Temple Bar's energy fuels Dublin's brash role as the Party Capital of Europe. At first, stag nights and hen parties sometimes turned rowdy. Local bars soon saw where that might lead and banned big, boozy groups. Many popular pubs also have doormen. Such measures succeeded, and the Dublin mood stays mellow.
www.temple-bar.ie/

 The Book of Kells, Trinity College
 and 'the Dublin Experience' 
Dignified and sombre, Trinity College has been Ireland's premier university since it was founded in 1592. The oldest remaining parts are 17th century. It says much about Ireland that Catholics (almost the entire Irish population) were barred until 1873, and then that for almost another century the Catholic church prohibited Catholics from attending. Pass through the lovely neo-Classical Reading Room, with its impressive Long Room gallery, to reach the Book of Kells, the 1200-year-old "most beautiful book in the world", which lies open at a richly painted page. Facing the library, The Dublin Experience is a multimedia attraction on the history of the city,
www.tcd.ie/Library/heritage

 O'Connell Street  
Most of Dublin's attractions are south of the Liffey, but its principal institutions and monuments are on the north side of the river, especially along this fine 18th- and 19th-century boulevard that has been described as "a main street the nation can be proud of." Among them is the astonishing, and purposeless, 393-foot (120m)  slender metal Spire of Dublin (known as the Spike), erected in 2003 to replace a Nelson's Column previously destroyed in a Republican bombing. Statues along the length of the street commemorate the great names of Irish life and letters, including the remarkable Irish nationalist campaigner Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) after whom it is named. Some of the others are less revered by locals, who call them by the most irreverent soubriquets, for example The Prick with the Stick (James Joyce). A greater landmark in the nation's long fight for independence is the city's grandiose main post office or GPO (General Post Office), which was seized during the 1916 Easter Rising, became the besieged HQ of the doomed nationalist leaders - and still has bullet marks in the facade.
NB - the street is rowdy and seedy at night.

 National Museum  
Gold, silver and gems feature among this treasure trove of ancient Ireland.
www.museum.ie/

 17th/18th-century architecture 
Several majestic set-pieces of neo-Classical and Georgian architecture have survived in Dublin's city centre.
  Bank of Ireland Westmoreland St, facing Trinity College; 17C, neo-Classical; Ireland's parliament until the Act of Union. The banking hall is the old House of Commons.
  Merrion Square A few paces SE of Trinity College; a beautifully preserved ensemble of 18C Georgian town houses.
  Custom House on the north bank, east of O'Connell Bridge; 18C, neo-Classical; now occupied by the High Court.

Silly souvenirs are something of a local speciality, with carved leprechauns, ornate little books about Ireland, Irish joke books, miniatures of Irish booze, etc, apparently in strong demand. Better quality Irish manufactures worth taking home include fine linen and lace, glassware, sweaters and tweeds. Irish culture in the form of Irish folk music CDs and tapes is worth buying.

Mar 12-17 (2010) Go crazy for St Patrick.
His special day is March 17, enthusiastically celebrated anywhere in the world that Irish people are to be found. The Irish capital spends a wild few days on its annual St Patrick's Festival, with street parties, exhibitions, funfair and music. Wear green, drink Guinness. The highlight is the St Patrick's Day parade.
www.stpatricksfestival.ie

Jun 16 - Bloomsday: Dublin Re-Joyces
The day celebrates Dublin on June 16 1904, the setting for Ulysses, by James Joyce. Not just Bloom, central character of Ulysses, but all of Joyce's life and work are celebrated in this strange literary appreciation that has become a city-wide festival in honour of Dublin. Events start a few days before the 16th.
www.jamesjoyce.ie