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Map of Dublin City
5 Minutes -Train
Station / Park and Zoo / Natl Museum
10 Minutes - Kilmainham Jail / Modern Art Museum /
Four Courts / Michan's Mummies / Guinness
/ Dublinia
15 Minutes - Temple Bar / Jameson
Distillery
20 Minutes - City Centre
Heuston
Station is the entry point to Dublin for
the greater proportion of Ireland's towns. Based on the design of an Italian
palazzo, it is easily Dublin's most impressive railway station and one of the
finest stations in Europe. That said, it's still a train station, and even after
its recent facelift, not the spot you would choose to wile away a Dublin day.
Luckily, Phoenix Park House is a three minute walk from the station. Book
now, drop your gear at the guesthouse, and you're free to enjoy your visit.
For a complete listing of railroad schedules, click on our link to Iarnrod Eireann - Irish Rail Services
Phoenix Park is Europe's largest enclosed
urban park. We're talking big! It's larger than the combined acreage of all
of London's main parks. The main entrance is just a few dozen feet from Phoenix
Park House. Click here for a tour of Phoenix Park's zoo, the President's House,
a castle, gardens, tea room and a huge deer herd.
National Museum - Collins Barracks
The National Museum -Collins
Barracks is just a five minute walk (honest!) from Phoenix Park House. Originally
the Royal Barracks dating back to 1704, this superb Georgian compound was, until
recently, the oldest in-use barracks in the world, with the largest 
barrack square in Europe.
Let's ignore what this says about Ireland's treatment of its armed forces personnel. Instead, fast forward through the remarkable 1990's transformation of the Barracks into a wonderful new site for the National Museum. Amidst the Georgian splendours of the architecture and huge square sits the Museum's bric-a-brac collection. This is not your standard tat, to be sure. Collins Barracks has become the attic for the museum, the place where they house all the zillions of odds and ends that don't quite fit elsewhere.
The National Museum gives the Barracks collection the grand name of Decorative Arts. But the title does not do the collection justice. The place is superb! Centuries worth of the finest silverware, wood carving, ballroom dresses, pottery, pewter, furniture, muskets, scientific instruments, clocks, you name it... they're all here. You wander through room after room of amazing stuff and the only thing you can be sure of is that the around the corner will be something equally diverting and totally different.
It's a wonderful place, kind of like rummaging through your grandma's attic if your grandma was a duchess.
| Opening Hours: |
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm Sunday 2pm-5pm |
| Admission: | Free |
| Facilities: | Shop Cafe |
| How to get there: |
Buses 7, 7A, 8 (Burgh Quay) 10, 11, 13 (O'Connell Street) Nearest DART Station Pearse Station (Westland Row) |
Kilmainham Gaol is one of those places even antsy
kids like to visit. This is the real thing, a jail from the bad old days. It
has dark recesses and corridors, an almost cathedral-like central cell area,
and a truly interesting museum. Generations of Irish patriots were imprisoned
here, but the place gained its greatest notoriety when the leaders of the failed
1916 Easter Rising were executed in the prison exercise yard. Definitely different
and a must see!
A visit to the Gaol includes a guided tour and audio visual presentation and an exhibition.
| Opening Hours: |
April-September 9.30-16.45 Daily October-March Monday-Friday 9.30-16.00 Closed Saturdays Sundays 10-16.45 |
| Admission: |
Adults £2.00 Children/Students £1.00 OAPs £1.50 Family £5.00 Group rates also available |
| How to get there: |
Buses
51 (Ashton Quay) 51A (Lower Abbey Street) 79 (Ashton Quay |
|
Royal Kilmainham Hospital and Modern Art Museum
The
Irish seat of the Hospitaler Order of Knights, in the
1700's another of Dublin's gorgeous Georgian masterpieces replaced the old hospital
buildings. You can walk round the old hospital and grounds freely now, and the
only thing you're likely to catch is a fever for modern art.
Yep, when modern hospitals replaced the old hospital, the building became Ireland's National Museum of Modern Art. Ireland is a hotbed of artistic ferment these days, but the Museum's own collection scarcely reflects this immense diversity and success. However, the shows it mounts are quite the thing. As an example, for its Warhol showing, room after room was turned into top to bottom Warhol rooms with Andy's wallpaper and paintings and doodlings covering floor, ceiling and four walls. You are immersed head to toe in an artist's work, and few do such shows better.
Best of all, you get to peer at that curious subculture of black dressed people who seemingly have nothing to do but sit around and discuss artists you've never heard about. Suchlike seem to hibernate in several of the museum's smaller rooms.
Ireland's
equivalent to the Supreme Court, Four
Courts is a hard place to miss. Its masterful Georgian architecture and
blue-green dome dominates the Liffey River views. Most folks simply pass it
by. Don't! You can stop by for just a few minutes to view the magnificent lobby
beneath the domed rotunda, but if you have some time to spare, a visit to a
courtroom is not to be missed. The barristers are still wigged and gowned and
the most interesting law cases in Ireland all end up here.
The building itself has had it tough. In the late 1700's it was gutted by fire and largely rebuilt. Then, in 1922, during the Irish Civil War, the place was again nearly destroyed when the Republican forces fortified it and the Free State army lobbed dozens of artillery shells to drive them out. This was the action that provoked the Civil War (which the Free State forces won), and the bitterness of that unhappy event is only now fading from memory.
Not for the faint of heart! Even the bloodlust of a video game playing 11 year old will cool here.
How
many churches do you hear that about? Michan,
a Danish bishop, built a church on this site in the 11th century. Until 1697,
it was the only parish church north of the Liffey and is, in fact, the second
oldest building in Dublin, after the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral. The church
contains one of the oldest organs still in use in Ireland. Handel is believed
to have played on it while composing The Messiah.
The church is really famous for is its collection of mummified bodies. To view the "collection" you descend a dark set of stairs to the vaults below. The magnesium salts in the local limestone suck moisture from the air. This has caused wooden coffins deposited in the crypts to split open, and the bodies within are preserved in leathery perfection. Guts have spilled out and you can trace the leathery remains of arteries and veins. Or shake the hand of one poor old fellow called "The Crusader."
Want
to buy some hot Irish property way out in the boondocks surrounding Dublin?
Expect to spend millions. So, as you walk by the 60 acre Guinness
complex ponder the genius of the founding father, Arthur Guinness, who in 1759
leased the land you see for 9,000 years at the cost of $45 per year (current
exchange rates. Heaven knows how the company will survive if the currency exchange
rates fluctuate.)
A forward looking man, was Arthur. If any current brew survives another 8,750 some years, it'll likely be Guinness. To an Irishman, the black brew is the elixir of life, the life blood of the nation, the true floating currency of the emerald isle. Amazingly, in its earliest days, the brewery did not produce stout - the thick dark eponymous drink. When Arthur decided to try his luck at brewing porter, it was to prove a decisive commercial move.
These days more than 10 million creamy pints of Guinness are served daily.
Dublinia and Christ Church Cathedral
You
buy a combined ticket that gains you entrance to Dublin Tourism's excellent
walk through Dublin history. When you've finished the audio-visual rich heritage
centre tour, you find yourself inside Christ Church Cathedral, where the mortal
remains of the Norman conqueror Strongbow are entombed. A walk through the crypt,
while not as creepy as St. Michan's, is another subterranean trip back in time.
This is Dublin's oldest continuously used building.
Temple
Bar is where
Dublin began. Now, it's where Dublin ends its days.
The original Viking settlers at the Black Pool (Dubh Linn) constructed a town with typically narrow little lanes and jammed houses to fit within the city walls. A fun tour through a reconstructed Viking town can be enjoyed at The Viking Experience. Or, you can wander the still winding streets to enjoy the funky feel of the modern place.
For, Temple Bar is now the in-place to eat, shop, and pub crawl in Dublin. This is the place to come for Greek food, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, even Irish meals. This is also the place where Irish music is most likely to heard lilting on the night air outside the many, many pubs in the area. There are several theatres here, art galleries, hip shops, and a couple of well frequented squares for just sitting. Temple Bar is where Dublin comes to play.
It was the Irish who invented
the "Water of Life", Ouisge Beatha. Jameson
Brewery takes you on a tour of the current brewing and old style brewing
process. Then comes the Applied Knowledge part of the course, where you're invited
to take part in a 'tasting.' The tour's worth the price just to get the free
drinks at the end. The kids enjoy this one, as well, though making do with soda
pop at the conclusion.
Yep,
you can walk along the Liffey River, ignore all the enticements above, and you're
slap bang in the commercial city centre. Of course, if you hate lovely river
walks and the open air, you can walk across the street and easily catch one
of the continual stream of buses leaving Heuston Station every 5 minutes - or
sooner. The taxi stand at the station usually moves pretty quickly as well.
The new Luas Tram station at Heuston Station will also whisk you to the city centre in record time.
Dublin - Events and Happenings
Visit Dublin Events for an up-to-date listing of all current Dublin events - theatre, cinema, festivals, comedy, concerts, exhibitions, sports and more.
