Dublin Things to Do

Whether you want to spend your time relaxing in the city’s beer gardens, exploring the city sights or partying up a storm, there’s no better time to get out and about in Dublin than summer. Best of all, there’s a packed schedule of events and festivals taking over the city during the summer months. Here are a few dates for the diary.

1) Trinity College Dublin Shakespeare Festival

The 2013 Trinity College Dublin Shakespeare Festival is held from June 5th to the 15th, when Dublin will come alive to the wise words of our favorite bard, William Shakespeare. Performers hit the streets and squares of the city putting a fresh twist on Shakespeare’s words. It’s Ireland’s biggest celebration of the writer and the festival is now in its 5th year. Trinity’s Front Square hosts the main performance this year: the Indian Tempest performed by Footsbarn Traveling Theater.

Ireland’s biggest Shakespeare Festival, the Trinity College Dublin Shakespeare Festival has been held each June for the past 5 years and draws thousands of theater lovers to the capital. The 10-day festival is devoted to the legendary English playwright, including over 60 outdoor performances of his works, featuring over 500 of the city’s most talented professional and amateur performers. Aiming to bring a fresh approach to Shakespeare’s most memorable plays and introduce enthusiasts to some of his lesser-performed works, the festival has quickly become the most awaited date on the calendar for theatergoers.

Fans of the book from all corners of the world gather in Dublin for the celebration, to commemorate the life and works of the legendary Joyce and to indulge in a tour of Dublin’s Ulysses-inspired sights. The principal pastime of festival participants is to recreate ‘a day in the life of Leopold Bloom’ as told in the book, and many fans take to dressing in early 20th century period clothing (the book is set in 1904) and starting their day with a breakfast of sausages, beans, black and white pudding and toast in honor of their beloved protagonist.

Gaelic football might be the national sport, but rugby is the sport of choice for many of Ireland’s sports fans and such is the popularity of the rough-and-tumble sport, that if there’s a rugby match on, you’ll be hard pushed to find a pub in Dublin that hasn’t tuned their TVs into the game. A major competitor in the annual Six Nations Championship (contested against England, France, Italy, Scotland and Wales) and 11-time champions, Ireland’s love of rugby shows no sign of waning.

St Patrick’s Day, held annually on March 17th, is one of Ireland’s biggest celebrations with Dublin at the center of festivities. Held in honor of St Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, St Patrick’s Day, or St Paddy’s Day as it’s often nicknamed, is the most traditionally Irish day of the year, a national holiday on which huge crowds of revelers take to the streets wearing shamrocks, donning green clothing (the symbolic color of Ireland) and downing pints of Guinness.

Whether you’re into effects-heavy blockbusters or hip art house flicks, you’ll likely still enjoy the vibe at Dublin’s coolest cinema, the Irish Film Institute (IFI). In the center of Dublin’s popular Temple Bar District, the institute is home to a cinema, library, bookshop and café, and hosts an ever-changing roster of independent films, many of which are not shown anywhere else in Ireland.

Nobody wants to miss an opportunity to party and Dublin’s epic NYE Dublin festival provides a myriad of options for making New Year’s Eve a night to remember. From street markets and movie screenings to a public fireworks display and an enormous music concert, here’s the lowdown on bringing in 2013, Dublin-style.

It’s impossible to visit Dublin without having at least a taste of the country’s national brew – Guinness – but for serious beer lovers, the city has a whole host of places that will broaden your beer-drinking education (and your beer belly).

Top of the to-do list for many visitors is the Guinness Storehouse, where fans are treated to a tour of the Guinness brewery, can learn about the history of Arthur Guinness and his world-famous brewery, and shop for mementos in the Guinness Storehouse Gift shop. Best of all, you’ll get to enjoy a free pint from the rooftop Gravity bar, with some great views over the city.

Not too hilly, not totally flat, Dublin is one of those cities that is perfect for cycling.

Like most major cities these days, the inner city is becoming increasingly clogged as people still insist on driving their cars around roads originally designed for horses and carts. That’s why cycling can be a perfect solution – why sit on a stationary bus when you can be whizzing past with the wind in your hair?

All great cities have their great river, and Dublin has the Liffey.

Throughout history, rivers have been important for trade, transport and water supply. This is why cities cluster around them and why our ancestors built some of the grandest buildings right next to them. Even in these days, when our food and furniture arrives by means other than ship, we still gravitate to rivers for recreation and respite.

One of the best ways to get to know Dublin is to take a river boat cruise along the Liffey. They leave regularly from Bachelors Walk, also known as The Boardwalk, an area of regenerated docklands with housing and lovely for strolling on the north bank of the river. You’ll see the buildings and bridges of Dublin as people have for centuries.