Dublin Things to Do

Dublin is a UNESCO City of Literature. There are only a few of them in the world (Dublin, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Reykjavik and Iowa City) so it’s significant and worth adding into your planning of a trip to Dublin. In fact, in Dublin it’s quite difficult to ignore its literary status and history. There are libraries, bookstores and museums in writers’ houses dotted all over the city, and many of the pubs claim to have been the haunts of the more famous Irish writers: James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde – although many of them spent years away from Dublin and spent more time at their typewriters than in the pub. Still, even writers need a drink at the end of the working day and in Dublin that means a visit to the pub.

Springtime. The end of the long cold winter. Time to get back out onto the streets and into life, to enjoy walking through parks with spring flowers and blossom on the trees. In Dublin, spring is the driest time of the year, and May the sunniest month. But I’d still pack a coat, gloves and a scarf. Oh, and a hat. Ireland can be sunny yet cold, dry but raining an hour later.

That’s what the pubs are for: warming up with a Guinness and checking your photos of those spring bulbs blooming in the park half an hour earlier. But spring is a great time to go to Dublin for several reasons: the flowers are coming out and the parks are coming back to life. This is a great time for walking along the river and enjoying the smiling greetings of the locals – they are really as friendly as they’re reputed to be.

These days it might not look like your traditional idea of a castle, with all its additions and changes over the last few centuries, but the sole remaining medieval tower proves that Dublin Castle was once one of those fortified castles of our dreams.

Much of it is open to the public including two museums – The Garda (Police) Museum and The Revenue Museum (not as dull as it sounds: interactive smuggling games!), two gardens, the Chapel Royal, and The Chester Beatty Library, which is no stuffy bookish room but is filled with manuscripts, prints, icons, miniature paintings, and other treasures from around the world.

In 2010 Dublin was named one of UNESCO’s Cities of Literature (of only five) which is hardly surprising given the rich literary scene, both past and present.

Each year in April, the city holds One City One Book, a festival during which they encourage everyone to read the same book and they hold events to celebrate that book and author. This year the book is Dubliners by James Joyce. This collection of early short stories is by far his most readable work and gives a great insight into the characters of Dublin.