Over yonder green mounds we go to explore! Dublin is the main honcho city of Ireland and an amazing spot to visit. I was lucky enough to fly down just as the Pride Festivities were kicking off, which meant the city normally known for drinking and having a good time was working double-time to set a new standard for itself.
But where to go and what to do when you have a limited time to sightsee Dublin? Do you explore its extensive parks of endless greenery? Do you sample all the various types of delicious alcohol they have in abundance? Do you cultivate your cultural side with their historical landmarks and iconic neighborhoods? Do you party so hard you have to put up wanted posters for your clothes the next morning? All the above?
I’ve divided the in and outs of Dublin into a few categories and the must-sees that accompany them.
The Parks and outside activities
While you can’t walk five meters through the city of Dublin without tripping over a stunning fountain or falling down a hillside of flowers laughing gaily all the while, I cannot recommend enough that you plan to visit at least one or two of Dublin’s public parks during your stay. Each one has its own pros and cons and depending on what your purpose in visiting might be (casual stroll for a sight-see, jogging for some exercise, organising a picnic with the family etc. etc.) there may be some parks more suited towards your ideal plan for the day.
So, let me break down some of the top spots to visit under my recommendation.
St Stephens Green
The first park I visited in Dublin. This medium sized plot has some of the most charming artwork to be found around and would be the top spot to visit for a little picnic or chill time with a family group, especially if there are small children involved. There is a child play area to corral them off from the adults who need a break and it offers wide open spots ideal for catching some sun, while overhanging trees provide plenty of shady shelter in the darker foliage of St Stephens Green. So come on down and sit back, open a cooler box of your favourite drinks.
And yes, alcohol is indeed allowed (I checked very thoroughly) but public intoxication is not, so now you can enjoy St Stephens Green with a loved one in one hand and your current partner in the other.
Iveagh Gardens
This was the first garden my companion and I tried to visit on our first day in Dublin, but we made the mistake of not checking the opening and closing times, so for your convenience this park is more of a morning or early afternoon spot than an evening mission. It’s around the same size as the St Stephen Green’s park, but less populated. It’s more ideal for an area where you want to have a bit of peace and quiet or have a more accessible spot to play a few games with the traveling partners or kids. No play park here for the young’uns, but there is some lovely statuary and a few aromatic flower gardens around to tickle your fancy as well as your olfactory nerves.
We had a relaxed time drinking here – I simply must make sure all these places were alcohol friendly for my loyal readers you see – and enjoyed a tranquil stroll through the flowerbeds before calling this park in for the day. There’s less to see in terms of entertainment pieces around the park compared to St Stephen Green, but it is a more relaxing spot if you’re looking to get away from the crowds for a bit.
Community garden
This was a delightful concept we came across as we were walking towards our final park of the day. I’m sure it’s a concept that’s prevalent in more than a few cities in the world but I was rather taken by the sightings of the community garden that turned out to be a group project for the whole city – except unlike other group projects I’ve been in I didn’t hate every second of it. This little park filled with pots and beds of flowers and shrubbery was in a more mass-amounts-of-graffiti-on-the-wall part of town but is open to anyone who fancies helping to maintain and help grow a flush green spot in a part of town where it helped improve the scenery immensely. There are events and meetups planned around it to help cultivate the ideals of community growth and prosperity. I wish we were around during a proposed meeting to help a bit as it seems a delightful way to meet some of your greener thumbed and more active neighbors while giving back to the public.
At which point I then remembered I don’t live there and so we moved on.
Phoenix Park
If there is only one park you can possibly visit during your whole trip, then make it Phoenix park.
This was the park that had it all; vast green open spaces to play some sports or games in, lush green plants and trees to offer plenty of cool protection from the midday sun, one or two beautiful wild animal sightings (These darling deer made my heart absolutely melt) and a few memorials and statues to tickle your history bone. It’s a spacious park and demands the most time to walk around and discover its undergrowth secrets, so I would advise packing a lunch and giving yourself plenty of time to explore the open fields of emerald grass to its mysterious glens of behemoth trees that shelter shy and lovely flora and fauna.
Phoenix Park has everything you could want out in a sunny day of walking and / or drinking.
Day time Drinking Tastings
If you come to visit Ireland but you plan to stay away from the taverns and tastings offered at literally every corner of the city then you probably chose the wrong destination for a holiday away (seriously, even the gardens mentioned above had alcohol served at every fourth bush). If you take my recommendation and stay by the Temple Bar area of Dublin, then you’ll find many venues to enjoy a very decent amount of high quality alcoholic drinks. Here’s a few spots and activities that are a must.
Having a Genuine Guinness and watching the Soccer Cup in a genuine Irish Pub
My companion and I were wandering about looking for a bit of lunch when we noticed the time and felt a little red in the face knowing that the game between France and Denmark had been going on for around ten minutes and we were missing it. Doubly embarrassing since he was Parisian himself. Triply embarrassing that it was around 2PM and we were sober in Ireland. Quadruple-ly embarrassing was that the game ended up having nothing really happen for 90 minutes.
But I digress; one thing you must try out is watching a sports game in a typical Irish pub, with either a Guinness or Whiskey in hand and some patented pub food in the other. Otherwise you’ll never truly feel the spirit of the Irish flow throw your stomach and liver and cause your head to start feeling tipsy because you’re such a light weight compared to these people.
Going for a whiskey tasting
Now you could just keep ordering whiskey after whiskey in a pub (it’s almost expected actually) and you can call that a tasting, but Ireland boasts some very fine quality tastings in distilleries which always seem to be next to a bar – like a pair of very close drunk cousins working a supporting arm around each other’s shoulders. You can pick around four drams of some very high quality proper Irish quality whiskey for a decent price and get a good amount of background knowledge on the makings and roots of the whiskey and its farm. Just so you can feel classy while you get sloshed in another country. Remember its not a drinking problem if there’s a history lesson involved while you do it – even if you can’t remember anything you were told by the next day.
Guinness Storehouse Tasting
Guinness literally flows through an Irish bloke’s blood more than any commonplace subjects like water or hemoglobin. I would not be surprised to find it in their children’s lunch boxes for school to be taken just before nap time. And while you can order one anywhere in the country at any time, (truly if the move IT took place in Dublin then Pennywise the clown would have been offering Georgie a pint while in the sewer drain) the best and most proper venue to truly get to grips with a Guinness would be the Guinness Storehouse. This massive seven story high brewery holds tastings, restaurants and gift shops dedicated to the black gold of Dublin. Best to make a booking before hand if you plan to go as it is quite a popular tourist spot, but well worth the trip and cost. Its around 18.50 Euros per person but don’t worry about kids, they enter free – while exempt from the actual tastings though.
With enough commitment you can get double the worth of that cost in regard to the amounts of Guinness flowing inside you along with some culture and history on this Irish ambrosia – because we are all about that history while drinking.
Gay nightlife
Now we had arrived during Pride week and so it would have been a travesty if we did not explore the gay crowd scene, and boy let me tell you; the Irish LGBQT can P-A-R-T-Y.
We started out our evening at PantyiBar, a cozy little hearth of a gay pub that offers great drink deals and barmen that probably came straight from the runway for their shift. After chatting with a few of the friendly locals we were told the next place we had to stop by was George for the evening Drag show that takes place at mid night, the bitching hour. After another drink and shot or two (those damn barmen were causing all kinds of thirst) we decided to go check out this so-called talent just down the road.
Now let me tell you, I’m not stranger to Drag shows; there are plenty back in Cape Town where I’m originally from and I even worked at a bar that had them most nights, so I knew what quality performances looked like. And these ladies blew me away while performing top and bottom notch levels of fun. The matron for the night was a Miss Dolly Grip who managed to keep the crowd in hysterics between her girl’s performances on and dangling-off the stage. She managed to combine beauty, grace and chutzpah so well that we were inclined to come again the next night hearing there was a whole new performance, where we were treated to Drag Queens playing with their poles for the crowd – stripper poles.
With guest stars from professional pole dancer fitness studios giving us life up in the air and legs behind ears we were kept laughing and gasping at the antics all night long. And Dublin had one last surprise for us when we discovered the local talent as the lip sync and dance your heart out open contests exposed the sass and style from what seemed every young male in the house, who brought moves that would have left Janet Jackson popping out her other breast for them to back up dance for her next tour.
Some Do’s and Don’ts in Dublin
- I highly recommend finding a place to stay on Airbnb somewhere in the Temple Bar region of the city. Airbnb has great and affordable deals and Temple Bar is the heart of the town and walking distance from most of the best spots in town to visit.
- Do enjoy the party atmosphere and friendly ambience of the local crowd – they are such a genuine and fun-loving people, hardly like anywhere else on earth.
- Don’t get so sloshed you make an arse of yourself and think this is okay in because you’re in Ireland. Everyone is here to have fun but the laws against public intoxication and indecency are still in place to make sure some few don’t ruin everyone’s fun. You’re here to have a good time but don’t be those
- Watch out for a common scam they have on the main roads; someone will come ask you to help them break change and end up shifting the amounts around when you aren’t paying attention. They seem to try this at every corner. There aren’t many beggars around but there does seem to be a high number of con artists, the most memorable being the one mentioned and one where we saw a guy pretending to be blind to get sympathy change but seemed to navigate perfectly fine once he thought no one was watching him. Keep your awareness up.
- The Irish people have heard every single leprechaun joke under the rainbow. You aren’t being original and its customary that you have to buy everyone in the bar a Guinness if you attempt a Leprechaun joke.
- Try carry around lots of small change around if you want to try use the bus system, as the driver does not accept notes, only coins, and will also not give out any change.
- Make sure to take many pictures wearing a Kilt (the green one not the red; that’s Scotland) and a ginger wig while holding a Pint of beer. How else will people be sure you went to Ireland?
I’ll see you folks later at the pub then! I’ll probably be the one buying a round of Guinness for everyone because I saw a short man in a coat and simply couldn’t help myself. G’day!
If you’ve been to Dublin or hail from there and you feel there’s something I’ve left out in this post, don’t be afraid to comment bellow or pop me an email giving me more advice on the matter. Ireland is certainly on my list of places to explore again in the future!
