Dateline Discovery

The capital city provides an introduction to the finest of Irish culture — even when it rains.

Vibrant and exuberant in its own right, the well-known charm of the Irish only helps to infuse this city, with its cobblestone streets and its welcoming energy enough to open its arms to any visitor.

FRIDAY

At the time of our visit, Uber could only be used to call licensed taxi drivers, so we did that to summon a ride, which cost slightly more than €20, to the Maldron Hotel in Smithfield Plaza. We weren’t staying in the most central location, but it was close enough to get anywhere in the city in a reasonable amount of time and was, best of all, fairly quiet.

Because we had most of the day to explore the city with no real obligations until dinner, we thought we’d take advantage of the winter daylight and the lack of rain (which, as we found out, was short-lived). After checking in, we headed directly to Trinity College, expecting a large crowd and a lengthy wait. Instead, we were able to get right in, allowing us to look at two pages of the remarkable Book of Kells, a copy of the Bible illustrated by monks in 800 that has (mostly) survived, and the famous Long Room in the Old Library, home to a number of busts of famous wordsmiths and more than 200,000 manuscripts.

From there, our walking tour included a jaunt over to Merrion Square, the most prestigious of Dublin’s public parks. In the northwest corner, in front of Oscar Wilde’s childhood home, is a statue of the author that depicts him smiling from one side but sneering from the other. Three blocks away is St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin’s most popular park, which is worth a jaunt through (and probably much more beautiful in the summer than in the middle of winter). Its main gate, Fusilier’s Arch, resembles the Arch of Titus in Rome.

What To Know
Date of visit: Jan. 19 to Jan. 21, 2018.
Airport location: Eight miles (12 km) north of the city. Taxis take 20 minutes; plenty of bus routes are also available.
Walkability: 5/10. It’s not the largest city, but the two streetcar lines (known as the Luas) and the comprehensive bus system make getting around much easier.
English: An official language, along with Irish/Gaelic.
Must-See Attraction: Kilmainham Gaol, a prison built in the 1700s that has been restored as a museum to educate visitors on the history of Irish nationalism.
Traveler’s tip: After a significant period of construction, the two lines of the Luas, the city’s streetcar system, finally connect. Depending on the distance, however, it can be faster to walk — and guards patrol it often, looking for fare dodgers.

We went through that arch and across to Grafton Street, which is one of Dublin’s main shopping streets. Because of its prominence, it has become a haven for many higher-end stores, and it’s off the main drag and onto the smaller side streets, where one can find boutique shops and cafes. (We were particularly taken by Ulysses Rare Books on Duke Street, which has a number of Irish and world classics available in first editions for considerable sums.) Buskers are prevalent and add to the overall atmosphere, but we found nothing about it that distinguished it from any other such area in any other city.

Upon escaping Grafton Street, we made our way to the city’s pair of famous churches — first St. Patrick’s Cathedral, then Christ Church Cathedral. The former, renovated repeatedly since it was completed at the turn of the 12th century, is the resting place of essayist and poet Jonathan Swift, who later became the dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Six blocks to the north and across where the old city wall once stood is Christ Church Cathedral, which has become one of the city’s most recognizable symbols because of its hilltop location and flying buttresses. Like its counterpart, it was built in the 12th century and restored numerous times, but its crypt is one of the largest in Europe and contains a rarity — a mummified cat in the act of chasing a mummified rat.

By this point, daylight began to dwindle, and we made our way east from the churches down Lord Edward Street and then north into the Temple Bar region. After checking out the pub itself (48 Temple Bar), which is considered to be the most photographed pub façade in the world, we looked for somewhere a bit quieter to rest our feet — and found that at O’Sullivan’s (10-12 Westmoreland Street).

It was also close to the site of our only true commitment of the day — the famous “Celtic Nights” show at Arlington Hotel (23-25 Bachelors Walk). The program, which we greatly enjoyed, included dinner and a two-hour musical production, beginning at 8:30 p.m., that combined some of the country’s traditional music and old-style Irish dance.

SATURDAY

Continuing with our theme of splitting our trips between a main city and a secondary destination, we caught a morning train to Belfast, taking the 9:30 a.m. service out of Connolly Station. Although it was two and a half hours each way — totaling five hours total on the train — it was time well-spent considering we left the hotel that morning in a steady rain.

We arrived in Belfast just before noon and walked about 10 minutes to McCracken’s (4 Joys Entry), a popular pub with plenty of space and plenty of seating. From there, we hailed a taxi bound for Titanic Belfast, a museum dedicated not only to the famous ocean liner but also the history of shipbuilding and commerce in the city. There are no artifacts on display in the museum to help preserve the conservation of the shipwreck, but it does include several recreations to help visitors see what it would have been like to cross the Atlantic.

The entire experience lasted about two hours, and after leaving, we had arranged for a black cab tour of the city’s political murals through Taxi Tours Belfast. For the next two hours, Stephen, a licensed cab driver and resident, took us through the history strife in the city, driving us along Shankill Road to the 60-foot peace wall, the Clonard Monastery, the Bobby Sands mural and more. It was an informative and respectful look at the difficult past, present and future of a combustible region that, even today, has no simple solutions in sight.

After taking the train back to Dublin, we capped our night with dinner at 101 Talbot (100-102 Talbot Street), a casual restaurant with local-sourced food close to the city center.

SUNDAY

Another rainy morning seemed only fitting as we caught the bus to Kilmainham Gaol, a prison built in the 1700s that played a role in Ireland’s struggle for independence for 150 years. Unoccupied since 1924 and restored in the 1960s, it is now a museum to the history of Irish nationalism, focusing particularly on the experiences of the leaders of the failed Easter Rising in 1916. Guided tours are mandatory, and they fill up quickly, so we were fortunate to book tickets online well in advance.

We then went to the Guinness Storehouse, just a 20-minute walk away, to learn about one of Ireland’s most famous exports. An old fermentation plant that has been turned into a seven-story interactive museum, it is the city’s most-visited tourist attraction and, accordingly, gathers quite a crowd. Admission includes free tastings at any of the museum’s bars or restaurants; out of the interest of convenience, we had lunch at Brewer’s Dining Hall on the fifth floor before taking in a panoramic view of the city at the Gravity Bar on the top floor.

With little time to spare before our flight home, we knew we couldn’t miss the “bog bodies” at the archaeology wing of the National Museum of Ireland. Four presumed tribal kings, believed to have been victims of horrendous ritualistic torture and sacrifice during the Iron Age, were buried in peat bogs around the country. And, on our walk back to the hotel to collect our bags before returning to the airport, we stopped at Dublin Castle, the center of English colonial administration until 1922, and of course the Ha’Penny Bridge — a 200-year-old cast iron crossing of the River Liffey that may be the most iconic image of the entire city.

Verdict: Some sun and and a bit more warmth would probably have provided the lush, green imagery thinking of Ireland usually conjures — and a trip to the rest of the country would do so as well — two days was the perfect amount of time to experience all the Irish capital has to offer.

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Disclaimers: All products, services and experiences were paid for and arranged by the author and the vendors named herein had no editorial oversight of this piece. All photographs were taken by and remain the property of the author; contact for republication rights.