Dublin travel guide

Top 10 sights in Dublin

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   Dublin Castle

   The seat of British administration in Ireland for seven centuries, handed over to Michael Collins in January 1922. The medieval castle mostly burned in 1684, so what stands is Georgian state apartments, used now for presidential inaugurations and EU summits.

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   2© Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St Patrick's Cathedral

   The national cathedral of the Church of Ireland, built from 1220 on the site where Patrick is said to have baptised converts. Jonathan Swift was dean here from 1713 to 1745 and is buried in the nave under an epitaph he wrote himself, on savage indignation.

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   3© YvonneM · CC BY-SA 3.0

   National Library of Ireland

   The national library, opened in 1890, holding the largest collection of Irish documentary material anywhere. Joyce set the library debate in Ulysses in its domed reading room, which is still free to use and looks much as it did.

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   Spire of Dublin

   A stainless steel spike a hundred and twenty metres high, put up in 2003 on the site of Nelson's Pillar. It tapers to fifteen centimetres at the top, is lit from within at night, and Dubliners have given it at least a dozen names, none of them official.

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   5© Jean Housen · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Leinster House

   A ducal town house of 1745 that has held the Irish parliament since 1922. Its garden front is said to have influenced James Hoban, a Kilkenny architect, when he designed the White House, which is the sort of claim Dublin enjoys making.

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   Phoenix Park

   Seven hundred hectares enclosed by a wall in 1662, twice the size of Central Park and one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. A herd of wild fallow deer has lived in it since the beginning, and the president, the American ambassador and the zoo all have addresses inside it.

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   7© Copyright © 2006 Kaihsu Tai · CC BY-SA 3.0

   National Gallery of Ireland

   The national collection, opened in 1864, whose most celebrated picture was found by accident: Caravaggio's Taking of Christ, hanging unrecognised in a Jesuit dining room in Dublin until 1990. Entry is free and the Irish rooms are strong on Jack Yeats.

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   8© Ingo Mehling · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

   Founded about 1030 by the Norse king of Dublin and rebuilt by the Normans, with a crypt that is the largest in Britain or Ireland. A mummified cat and rat, found in the organ pipes where the chase ended, are displayed in it and known locally as Tom and Jerry.

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   9© Dronepicr (edited by King of Hearts) Edit corrects CA and sharpens image · CC BY 3.0

   Saint Stephen's Green

   Nine hectares enclosed in 1664 for the use of the surrounding householders and opened to the public in 1880, paid for by a Guinness. The park is Victorian in layout, with a lake, a bandstand and a memorial to the Great Famine.

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    10© Aligatorek · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Chester Beatty Library

    The collection of Alfred Chester Beatty, a mining magnate who left it to Ireland: early Christian papyri, Qur'ans, Persian and Mughal miniatures, Chinese jade books. It is arguably the finest small museum in Europe and it is free.

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Popular tickets & tours in Dublin

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   1© Sergio · CC BY 2.0

   Manderley Castle

   A Victorian castellated house at Killiney in County Dublin, formerly called Victoria Castle and then Ayesha Castle. The singer Enya has owned it since 1997, and it takes its present name from the house in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

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   2© Nol Aders · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kilmainham Gaol

   A prison of 1796, now empty and echoing, where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were held and where fourteen of them were shot in the stonebreakers' yard. One was so badly wounded he was tied to a chair to be executed, which did more for the cause than the Rising had.

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   3© psyberartist · CC BY 2.0

   Guinness Storehouse

   Museum in Dublin opened in 2000 in a fermentation store of 1904. Seven floors around a glass pint explain the brewing; the top one is a circular bar with a view over the city.

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   Nelson's Pillar

   A granite column with Nelson on top, put up in 1809 in the middle of Sackville Street and for a century and a half the centre of Dublin. Former IRA men blew off the upper half in March 1966, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising, and the army demolished the rest.

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   Temple Bar

   A quarter of narrow streets on the south bank that the transport authority bought in the 1980s intending to demolish for a bus station. The cheap rents meanwhile filled it with studios and bars; the plan was dropped and the bars stayed.

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   6© William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Malahide Castle

   A castle near the village of Malahide, fourteen kilometres north of central Dublin, parts of which go back to the twelfth century. The Talbot family held it for nearly eight centuries; its 267-acre demesne survives as Malahide Demesne Regional Park.

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   7© Harold Strong · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Dublin Zoo

   Opened in 1831 in the Phoenix Park and the third oldest zoo in the world. It was known for breeding lions, one of which, born here in 1927, is said to have been the roaring lion in the MGM titles.

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   8© Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). · CC BY-SA 4.0

   National Museum of Ireland

   The archaeology branch holds the gold of prehistoric Ireland, the Ardagh Chalice, the Tara Brooch and four Iron Age bog bodies, preserved by peat down to their hair and fingernails and displayed with unusual care about how they died.

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   9© YvonneM · CC BY-SA 3.0

   James Joyce Tower and Museum

   The Martello tower at Sandycove where James Joyce stayed for six days in 1904. It is the setting of the opening chapter of Ulysses, published in 1922, and draws Joyce's readers particularly on Bloomsday. Admission is free.

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    Merrion Square

    A Georgian square of the 1760s whose brick terraces have the painted doors and fanlights that appear on every Dublin postcard. Wilde grew up at number one and reclines in coloured stone in the park opposite, looking pleased with himself.

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