Visit Dublin for holiday in Ireland

DUBLIN One of the first things on anyone's list when arriving in Dublin, apart from a pint of the dark stuff, is a trip to Trinity College, the university that let loose on the world such diverse minds as Oscar Wilde and Wolfe Tone, Samuel Beckett and Bram Stoker. Founded in 1592 by Elizabeth the First as a place 'to civilize Ireland with both learning and the Protestant religion', and it was not until 1966 that Catholic students didn't have to obtain permission from their home diocese to attend. Women, on the other hand, were allowed in as undergraduates in 1903. Walking around the cobbled quadrangles is a relaxing way to spend a few hours before launching yourself back into the bustle of the city. The Old Library is the most popular destination for most visitors as it houses a permanent exhibition centred on The Book of Kells, and has an audio-visual feature showing how this stunning illustrated manuscript was put together.

The Book of Kells is one of the wonders of the world, a glorious copy of the four Gospels crafted by the monks of Kells Monastery around 800 AD, at the height of Ireland's golden age of monastic talent, and runs to 680 pages of illuminated script. It was rebound into four volumes in 1955, and two are on display at any one time, showing an illuminated page in one cabinet and a page of script in another. Each illustration is a work of art in itself, and shows the imagination of the monks who painstakingly executed this masterpiece filling the pages with pictures of beasts, devils, domestic cameos, flowers and fruit, and angels, all combining to become a sermon on life in the world at that time. The colours that they used were all cleaned from whatever they could beg or barter, chalk for white, copper verdigris for green, lead for red, and blue from either woad or lapis lazuli, and all attached to the parchment by an egg-white fixative. One can only marvel at their ingenuity, and wonder how many migraines were induced in creating this beautiful work. This book is not the only manuscript on display in the Library as the collection also includes various other works completed at around the same time, and the Book of Durrow, the oldest decorated book of Gospels in existence.

Also in the Library, is the Long Room, an impressive barrel-vaulted tunnel supported by numerous pillars, which turn out to be the bookshelves that store the quarter of a million volumes in the College's possession. Along with the books the building is the home to an ancient harp, said to have been held by the hands of Brian Boru, and an original, tattered copy of the poster of the Proclamation of the Republic of Ireland, pasted around Dublin at the time of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Dublin, as befits a nation's capital, has the National Museum of Archeology and History, which is just a stones throw from Trinity. There are seven permanent exhibitions that cover the last 7,000 years of Ireland's history, from the 52ft long Lurgan log-boat dating from 5000 BC, through the bronze-age artifacts that have been dug up from many a bog, Viking and Medieval Ireland, the Church, Ancient Egypt, and The Road to Independence. The most popular of these sections is The Treasury, a wonderful collection of jeweled, chased, and beaten objects found all over the country. The craftsmanship on display is quite remarkable, as is the fact that so many of them seem to have been so carelessly discarded over the years. The Tara Brooch, an inspiration for countless pieces of modern celtic jewellery over the years, was found on a beach, and the Ardagh Chalice, together with four brooches, was found by a potato farmer inside the bounds of a ring fort, land he was illegally appropriating to expand his crop. The Broighter Hoard from County Londonderry, is a collection of pre-Christian gold-work at its finest, with various pieces of jewellery and a model boat of sheet gold so thin that you would think that you would crush it just by touching it. There are portable shrines on display, some for carrying crosiers, and others for slightly more bizarre artifacts like St Lachtim's arm and St Bridgid's shoe.

Other permanent displays show that the Vikings were not quite the raping, pillaging mob that most would have you believe, but skilled metal-workers and artisans. The section on Medieval Ireland, when the country was settled by English lords, shows the transition of power from the old High Kings to the Norman Barons, and illustrates the trades, activities, and lifestyles of all sections of the population.

Another popular section is the exhibition dedicated to Irish Independence. This tells the story of the struggle, sometimes without the help of the general populous, to gain freedom from Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, and one of the most poignant exhibits is the uniform that Michael Collins was wearing at the time that he was murdered by the I.R.A.

Next door to the Museum is Leinster House, the home of the Irish Parliament since 1925. James Fitzgerald, the 20th Earl of Kildare, and subsequently 1st Duke of Leinster, from whom it gets its name, originally commissioned the building. Construction started in 1745 under the architect Richard Cassels, and was finished two years later. Although it was outside the then boundaries of Dublin, and in an unfashionable area, the Duke proved his detractors wrong as the aristocracy followed his lead and began building their own houses here as well. The Parliament uses several of the original grand Staterooms for its deliberations, as well as some of the additions made by the Royal Dublin Society, who bought the house from the third Duke. One of the more unusual features of the building is that the Main Staircase doesn't lead from the Grand Hall, but rather from a room adjacent to it. It is also supposed that the bow-fronted fa硤e was the model for the White House in Washington D.C., as the architect for that was an Irishman named James Hoban, who had studied at the Dublin Society School and would have doubtless examined the construction of Leinster House as part of his training. The grounds around the house are littered with obelisks and memorials to Irish heroes past and are a pleasant place to walk and picnic on a fine day.

Another section of the Museum of Ireland is situated in Collins Barracks, about a mile and a half away, in an 18th century building formally the Royal Barracks, which used to house 3000 men and up to 1000 horses. This is the site of the National Museum of Decorative Arts and History, and it holds a fine collection of ceramics, silverware, and a huge array of furniture, not just your common or garden antique stuff, but from the 16th century to the present day. There are active demonstrations, and computer aided displays to show how things were made.

If you are looking for luxury accommodation in Dublin then you are spoilt for choice. There are luxury hotels, gorgeous flats to rent in Dublin, modern apartments for holiday rentals, idyllic houses for weekend breaks in Dublin, historic rental properties, 5 star accommodation to rent, boutique hotels, cosy bed and breakfast accommodation - whatever type of holiday property you want to stay in in Dublin then you will have no trouble finding what you want as there is so much available to rent in Ireland's capital city.

Dublin Castle, so long the symbol of British rule over the country, still dominates an area of the city. Built in the 13th century, the castle has long had the grimness of the original fa硤e hidden by the mellow Georgian brick that you see today. There have been at least two attempts to lay siege to it, one in 1534 by 'Silken Thomas' Fitzgerald, and more recently in 1916 by over optimistic rebels during the Easter Rising, neither of which was a success. Most of the original castle has been redesigned internally, most notably during the 18th century, and a range of buildings was added at about that time. The main tour takes you through the State Rooms, which are still used to entertain foreign dignitaries. Included in this tour is St Patrick's Hall, nearly 100ft long and home to the now defunct Knights of St Patrick and their banners, the Irish equivalent of the Knights of the Garter, the Wedgwood Room, the great Drawing Room, and finally, the Throne Room, complete with gold leaf on the furniture and lit by golden chandeliers. The real treasure of the castle comes not from the occupying British, but from an adopted son.

Alfred Chester Beatty was an American mining engineer, come mining tycoon, come art collector, who moved to Dublin from England in 1953 with his vast collection of Oriental artworks and religious manuscripts. When he died in 1968 such was his popularity that he was accorded a State Funeral, the only foreigner to be so honoured. In his will, however, he had left the entire collection to the Irish Government, and this is now housed in the clock tower on two floors, and arranged in seven permanently changing displays. The range of the collection is simply astounding and one wonders how he had the time to pick and choose the artifacts or whether he just bought a job lot. Collections of Netsuke, the little Japanese carved toggles that hold down the ends of your Kimono cord, vie with fascinating Japanese paintings on paper or silk, some over 80ft long, depicting military confrontations, stories, or courtly history. The detail of the carving, especially the jade, defies belief, and the pictures showing girls daydreaming, or someone walking through the snow, are perfectly captured and take you away to another culture, in a different time. The Chinese section contains more jade, including some snuffboxes, lacquer-work and items carved from rhinoceros horn. The Indian display includes ceremonial sword and daggers, whereas the Arabic and Persian material has some intriguing manuscripts on engineering, astronomy, and geometry. On the second floor the collection centres on religion, with the oldest segment of the Book of Revelation yet discovered, and a copy of St Paul's Epistles written in about 200 AD. Islam is represented in several copies of the Koran, each richly illustrated, and jeweled Koran stands, Beatty owned 300 copies, and paintings showing the life of the Prophet. You haven't finished yet as there are still examples of art from the Shinto, Hindu, Sikh, Daoist, and Buddhist faiths to look over. If you want to get maximum enjoyment from this exceptional collection, don't try to see it all at once, but spread it out over a couple of days as your senses will need time to recover between visits.

St Patrick's Cathedral towers over Dublin with its 225ft spire, and is a symbol of the country's enduring commitment to Catholicism. The building stands on the River Poddle, which still runs underneath it, and was built between 1225 and 1254. It has survived the ravages of time, Protestant upheaval, occupation by Huguenots, and even a pitched battle within its walls. This site is supposedly on the spot of St Patrick's well, from which drew water to baptize the locals, and the stone that covered this was discovered in 1901. There are various monuments to people associated with the building dotted around the transepts, but the most famous person to occupy the position of Dean was the writer Jonathan Swift, and there are many reminders of his tenure here, including a plaster cast of his skull, the original having been removed from his grave in the 1830s, and passed around fashionable Dublin as a curio until it was reburied in 1920. The most unusual artifact is the Door of Reconciliation, formerly the door to the chapter house, behind which the illegitimate son of the Earl of Ormond had locked himself to escape the clutches of his enemy, the Earl of Kildare. Ormond refused all guarantees of safe conduct until Kildare, realizing that it wasn't too clever to murder someone in the Cathedral, cut a hole in the door, stuck his unprotected arm through in a gesture of trust. Ormond lived to fight another day, but the incident prompted the expression 'to chance your arm'. It remains as a potent symbol of taking the first step in an attempt to reconcile differences.

The other cathedral in Dublin is Christ Church Cathedral, established on the site of the wooden church built by the first Bishop of Dublin and the local Viking chieftain. When the Normans invaded and burnt the structure, their leader, Richard de Clare, promised to fund the building a new church out of his, and the other Norman nobles', pockets. The cathedral was finished in 1240, and the Crypt, at 175ft long, is one of the longest in the British Isles, and the multitude of pillars that you have to negotiate, are holding up the entire structure. The Crypt houses various carvings and statues, and also the mummified remains of 'the cat and the rat', found in an organ pipe during the course of a regular service, doubtless the result of their last chase. Christ Church was the place where Richard II received homage from the Irish Earls, O'Neill, O'Connor, McMurrough, and O'Brien in 1394, where Lambert Simnel, the English imposter to Henry VII, was crowned King in 1486, and where Handel's 'Messiah' received its world premiere in 1742. The choir is still an integral part of the cathedral and hold regular performances.

Next door to Christ Church is Dublinia and The Viking World, an explanation of the development of the city following the first English invasion, under the leadership of Richard de Clare, to the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1540s. It shows how the English expanded their occupation by conquest and inter-marriage, until they had total dominance over the country. Finally, with the establishment of the Church of England, the destructive effect this had on the Irish catholic community.

The General Post Office is the main building on O'Connell Street and is the home of the Irish postal service. It was built at the beginning of the 19th century and is the last great Georgian building in the city. The G.P.O. gained huge significance in terms of Irish independence, when Patrick Pearse read aloud 'The Proclamation of the Irish Republic' from its steps and, along with James Connelly and some of the other volunteers, occupied the building for a week until the Army blasted them out. The G.P.O. was severely damaged in the shelling and it wasn't until 1925 that it was restored, however there are still bullet holes in the stone to mark these events.

The architect James Gandon designed two of the most important public buildings in Dublin, the Custom House and the Four Courts. Gandon was brought over from England by Lord Carlow and the Rt. Hon. John Beresford and was commissioned to build a replacement for the existing building, which had been declared unsafe after only seventy years. Gandon decided to move the city centre eastwards and also extend the line of quays further towards the sea. Construction started in 1781 and was finished ten years later at a cost of 200,000 pounds. One of the external features of the building are the fourteen key-stones, symbolizing the thirteen rivers of Ireland and the sea, the strength of the country's trade. The interior was completely destroyed in the Civil War of 1922, and the heat was so intense that the dome melted and the stonework was still cooling five months later. The building has since been restored to its former glory, and now contains the offices of the Department of the Environment.

The Four Courts currently contains the Supreme Court and the High Court of Ireland, but the origin of the name, and its design, refers to its former life as home to the courts of the Exchequer, Chancery, King's Bench, and Common Pleas. James Gandon came onto the project half-way through and the overall design is his, including the shallow dome that surmounts the pillared drum, and when you walk into the main hall the height of the dome in quite intimidating. Again, the I.R.A. heavily damaged the structure during the civil war and most of the documents of the Public Records Office were destroyed, this is why it is extremely difficult to trace family members in Dublin prior to 1800.

Possibly the strangest building in Dublin is the Casino at Merino. This is regarded as one of the finest examples of neo-classical architecture in Europe, however small it may be. Designed by William Chambers for the Earl of Charlemont, this is the ultimate rich man's folly, and was finished in 1776. Although from the outside it looks like a single-roomed Greek temple, looks can be deceptive. This miniature pleasure palace has three floors of well-proportioned rooms, stucco ceilings, and beautifully inlaid floors lit by ingeniously hidden sources of light. The corner columns conceal the rainwater down-pipes, being hollow, and the urns on the roof hide the chimney pots. The carefully curved windowpanes act as one-way mirrors, hiding the occupants from any curious passers-by, and as a whole is all trickery and deceit. Stunning as it is, it went some way to bankrupting the Earl.

On the subject of strange attractions, none comes stranger than the mummified remains in the vaults of St Michan's Church, across the street from the Four Courts. The bodies, some belonging to crusaders from the 12th century, have been preserved due to the water absorbent qualities of the magnesium limestone in the church's foundations.

In the north of the city are the National Botanic Gardens, an 80-acre haven in which to relax. There are over 20,000 species of plants, hundreds of yards of limestone paths some extensive glasshouses, including the recently restored Curvilinear Range, herbaceous displays, rose gardens, vegetables, and an arboretum.

Other gardens in Dublin worth dropping in on during your stay are in the middle of St Stephen's Gardens, which has a display for the visually impaired, and Iveagh Gardens, which has sunken lawns, graveled paths, a beautiful ornamental pond and fountain, mature trees, concealed arbors, and a maze.

One of the most recent additions to Dublin is the Francis Bacon Studio located in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Bacon was born in Dublin in 1909 and the family moved to County Kildare after the First World War, but the troubles around the time of Independence forced him to leave the country. In the 1920s and 30s he traveled to Berlin and Paris and an exhibition by Picasso persuaded him to become an artist. On his death 1992 his main beneficiary decided to give his studio to the Gallery, walls and all. The studio, originally 7 Reece Mews, London, was totally dismantled by art experts and a team of archeologists, and reassembled in Dublin. The exhibit contains over 7,000 items, including artist's materials, slashed canvasses, books, and magazines. Sir Hugh Lane founded the gallery in 1908 and is the first known specialist modern art gallery in the world. Lane was an art dealer and built up a considerable private collection including works by Manet, Degas, Renoir, and Vuillard. Unfortunately he went down with the Titanic, but he had already bequeathed his collection to the city.

With Dublin's association with having a drink, a trip to the Guinness Brewery and Storehouse is almost as important as taking a pilgrimage. Half of all the beer drunk in Ireland comes from the sprawling complex on the north bank of the River Liffey, and the success of the brew world-wide is shown in that 2,500,000 pints are drunk daily, in over 120 countries. Part of the success is due to the company policy of employing some of the best commercial artists to advertise their product, and there is a comprehensive display of some of the best campaigns of the last fifty years. After a tour of the former storehouse and a description of the brewing process, you can retire to the top of the Pint Glass shaped exhibition centre, the Gravity bar, the highest bar in Ireland, for a complimentary pint of the real stuff, and a lovely view of Dublin.

An alternative to a glass of the black stuff is a trip to the Jameson Distillery, just across the river from Dublin Castle. This is where the first distillery was sited in 1780, and the present visitor centre was opened in 1997. There is the traditional tour of the whiskey-making process from the Grain Store, Malt House, Triple Distillery, the Cooperage, and finally the Bar.

If a breath of fresh air is what you are after, then a trip to Phoenix Park, the largest walled city park in Europe, will refresh you. This is the home of the official residences of the President of Ireland, the American Ambassador, Dublin Zoo, and the State Guest house. Conveniently close to Kilmainham Gaol, the 1,750 acres of parkland provide an oasis of trees and grassland that is enjoyed by Dubliners throughout the year. It used to be that every Government official was allowed to take one on the deer from the park every year, these days they just wander about unmolested. There is a visitor centre on the north side which details the history of the park over the years, and its various owners, and where you can get a map showing all the attractions, including the 205ft high Wellington Monument and the site of the famous Phoenix Park Murders.

Kilmainham Gaol is now a centre for the history of the Irish struggle for independence, and a monument to those who over the years died in the various attempts to achieve this end. From Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen in 1798, Robert Emmett's short-lived rising in 1803, the Fenian rebellion in 1867, to the 1916 Easter Rising, all the main protagonists were rounded up and imprisoned here. The building was built in 1786 and deliberately designed to be as imposing and threatening as possible, and above the front door there is a stone carving of 'the Five Devils of Kilmainham', five hissing snakes chained by the neck, to represent evil under control. The museum's guided tour takes you through Georgian and Victorian Dublin, a city of slums, mass unemployment, disease, ignorance, prostitution, alcoholism, and early death. The Gaol was where the flotsam of the city ended up, often spending months in prison here and executions were commonplace. During the famine, despite its fearsome reputation, starving men and women would commit trivial offences in order to be sent here and so qualify for a straw bed and a spoonful of thin gruel. The cells where the Easter Rising rebels were held are in the older part of the prison, on a particularly cold and dark passage. The guide will lock you into one of the cells for a few minutes so you can experience the claustrophobic atmosphere the prisoners endured whilst awaiting their fate. Two of the prison yards were used for executions, the most poignant being the one in which fifteen of the 1916 rebels were shot, including James Connolly who, unable to stand due to a shattered ankle, was tied to a chair before the sentence was carried out. For from discouraging the Irish, who had considered the uprising baffling, this only served to make martyrs of them and swing public support behind their cause. The last prisoner to leave the Gaol was Eamon de Valera, who went on to become both Primer Minister and President of the Republic.

Dublin is well known for the poets, playwrights, and authors - the most popular must be James Joyce, and fanatics converge on Dublin every 16th of June to participate in 'Bloomsday', a walk round the city faithfully following in the footsteps of Joyce's hero, Leopold Bloom. One thing to take into consideration is your stomach, as, along with the numerous pints of Guinness, one ritual is unavoidable, the lunch of a Gorgonzola and mustard sandwich at Davy Burne's pub. If you are not following the trail on the official day you can look for the brass plaques set into the pavements, and pick and choose which bits you want to do to explore Joyce's Dublin.

There are a couple of literary museums worth visiting most notably 33 Synge Street, the very modest birthplace of George Bernard Shaw. This is an example of the stiflingly respectable Victorian upbringing the playwright endured, and conceals the existence of an alcoholic father, and an overbearing mother. The house has been fully restored to how it would have looked when Shaw lived here, but if you are looking for more personal possessions of the man then a trip to the Dublin Writers Museum on Parnell Square is the place. This Georgian mansion has displays on many of the famous writers associated with the city, and is a hive of useless information on many of them. For example, Oscar Wilde was a promising boxer, and Samuel Beckett could have played first class cricket. The building has various personal effects on display, and if these are not to your taste, then the decoration of the house is worth seeing anyway.

Another way to experience the literary heritage of the city is to take the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. This is a crash course in literature, history, and public house architecture, and gives you an idea why Kenneth Tynan, the celebrated British theatre critic said, 'The English hoard words like misers, the Irish spend them like sailors'. Your two guides will take you to some of the most famous landmarks in the city, invite you to have a drink, and recite poems and prose from an assortment of Irish writers. This is a good way to kill two birds with one stone, do the literary bit and potter around the centre of Dublin.

Crossing the Liffey is easy to do but why not do it using the Ha'penny Bridge. This is a beautiful old Georgian pedestrian bridge built in the 18th century and spans the river between O'Connell Street and Capel Street and the south side leads you out to the Temple Bar Arch. Although the name of the bridge has changed many times over the years, this is the one that the locals always used, signifying the toll that was charged to use it. This toll was taken away many years ago but the name still persists.

The area around Temple Bar was due to be flattened not so long ago to make way for a new bus depot as it had become so run-down that no-one wanted to live here much less visit. Fortunately Group 91, a collection of young architects, decide that this was not such a good idea and put together some radical plans to rejuvenate the district. They designed a radical mix of art galleries, theatres, and an arts centre around the area of Meeting House Square. The buildings lost their whitewashed exteriors and became hot pink, orange, or Mediterranean blue, and sober rooflines started sprouting weird hairstyles. The normally straight balconies became curved and the district became the trendiest place in Dublin. Before you knew it new boutiques and lifestyle shops sprang up, artists, photographers and filmmakers were moving their offices and studios, and at night this is the centre of a lively dance club scene. During the day people come here for a good cup of coffee or a meal in an ethnic restaurant, a visit to Cows Land Design and Fashion Market for some interesting clothes, or the Temple Bar food market to stock up on everything from sushi to homemade bread, olives to sausages. Around the square are a school of acting and the Ark, something for the children, and the National Photographic Archive. This has over 300,000 images in its vaults ranging from portraits to landscapes, and extensive coverage of the Easter Rising and the 1922 Civil War.

Nearby is the fashionable shopping district around Grafton Street, with its designer stores and boutiques featuring some of the best examples Irish fashion. Having indulged in a little retail therapy you can call in on Bewleys, the suppliers of tea, coffee, and chocolate to the Irish for over 200 years. The family, originally of English Quaker extraction, owned the first tea clipper to dock in Dublin, and held a virtual monopoly on the trade for many years. The firm, who still have connections with the family, have opened up a museum here so you can sit, relax and sample their blends in the elegant Oriental Caf鮠

St Stephens Green is the most wonderful example of pure Georgian architecture in the city, a square where almost every house is a monument to one famous Irishman [or woman] or another. The houses were a gift to the city from the Guinness family, as was the popular garden in the middle, which is swamped with sun-worshipers on good days. Perhaps the most striking pair of houses here are numbers 85 and 86, called Newman House and part of University College Dublin. Named after Cardinal Newman, the first rector of the University, the interior plasterwork of is some of the finest of its kind, number 85 having been done by the Lanfrancini brothers, and 86 in the Irish rococo style. The area surrounding the gardens is awash with beautiful buildings so be sure to go armed with plenty of film for your camera, with highlights being Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square, and Harcourt Street.

The latest, and most controversial addition to the Dublin skyline is the Dublin Spire, more commonly known as the 'spike'. It was commissioned to mark the millennium celebrations in the city but it was not finished until 2003 and marks the centre of the redevelopment of O'Connell Street. Standing on the old site of Nelson's Pillar, another structure destroyed by the I.R.A., the spire is the largest sculpture in the world at almost 400ft tall. It has, however become a talking point amongst Dubliners as to whether it is a worthy addition to the city.

An unusual way to see the city is with Viking Splash Tours. They drive you around the city, pointing out the sites along the way, in converted WW2 DUKWs, amphibious vehicles that hold up to 30 people, and finally they launch themselves at the Grand Canal Basin for a final 20 minute cruise. The Grand Canal was started in 1765, the Royal in 1789, in an amazingly ambitious plan to link Dublin to the west of the country via the Shannon waterway, and the southeast by way of the River Barrow. The two canals ring the centre of the city and are mostly used for recreation these days, and if you want to travel all the way to either Donegal Bay or Limerick, and the mouth of the Shannon, either journey will take you at least ten days.

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