Things to Do in Dublin: Tours, Tickets & Day Trips

Ranked by traveller reviews: 1) the Cliffs of Moher, Burren and Galway day tour, 2) the Dublin highlights and hidden gems walking tour, 3) the Guinness Storehouse and its Gravity Bar, 4) the Jameson Distillery or Irish Whiskey Museum tasting, 5) Glendalough, Wicklow and Kilkenny, 6) the Giant’s Causeway, Dark Hedges and Belfast day tour, 7) Trinity College and the Book of Kells, 8) the traditional Irish musical pub crawl, 9) Kilmainham Gaol and 10) the Dublin food tour with seven tastings.

Plan two days in the city and one or two for the countryside. Day one: a walking tour from College Green, Trinity College and the Book of Kells (book a timed slot), Dublin Castle and the Chester Beatty, Grafton Street and St. Stephen’s Green, Temple Bar and a musical pub crawl at night. Day two: Kilmainham Gaol first (timed tickets sell out), the Guinness Storehouse, lunch in the Liberties, the Jameson Distillery or Irish Whiskey Museum, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Georgian doors of Merrion Square and dinner on a food tour. Day three: the Cliffs of Moher, Burren and Galway (a 13-hour day) or Glendalough, Wicklow and Kilkenny. Day four: the Giant’s Causeway and Belfast, or Howth’s cliff walk and a seafood lunch.

The National Museum of Archaeology, the National Gallery, the Natural History ‘Dead Zoo’, the Chester Beatty Library’s manuscripts, the Hugh Lane Gallery and Francis Bacon’s studio, St. Stephen’s Green, Merrion Square’s Oscar Wilde statue and the Iveagh Gardens, Phoenix Park and the deer herd, the Trinity College quads, the Ha’penny Bridge, Temple Bar’s buskers and the Saturday food market, the Grand Canal and the Docklands, the National Botanic Gardens, the Howth cliff walk and Dún Laoghaire pier by DART, the Sandycove Forty Foot swim and the 1916 walking route from the GPO. Dublin Castle’s gardens and the Christ Church exterior cost nothing.

The Cliffs of Moher, the Burren and Galway (three hours each way; about €70), Glendalough, the Wicklow Mountains and Kilkenny (€38–45; half-day Glendalough €33), the Giant’s Causeway, Dark Hedges, Dunluce Castle and Belfast’s Titanic quarter (€60–85), Newgrange and the Boyne Valley (€64), Cork, Blarney Castle and the Rock of Cashel (€85), Powerscourt Gardens and Wicklow (€65), Howth and Malahide Castle by DART (30 minutes), Kilkenny by train (90 minutes) and Belfast by train (two hours).

The traditional Irish musical pub crawl and the literary pub crawl, live sessions at O’Donoghue’s, the Cobblestone in Smithfield and the Brazen Head (Dublin’s oldest pub), the Temple Bar pubs (loud and touristy — go once), the Irish Dance Party, the haunted Dublin and Bram Stoker ghost walks, the Abbey and Gate theatres, comedy at the Laughter Lounge, cocktails in the Vintage Cocktail Club, a Guinness at the Gravity Bar before closing, a whiskey tasting flight and, in December, the Christmas lights on Grafton Street and the Winter Lights trail.

Dublin in winter is about pubs, museums and lights: the Christmas markets and the Winter Lights on the Liffey bridges from late November, the New Year’s Festival, the Temple Bar TradFest in late January, the Guinness Storehouse, Jameson and whiskey tours warm and indoors, the National Museum and Chester Beatty, a Six Nations rugby weekend in February and March, Bram Stoker’s Dublin by lamplight and St. Patrick’s Festival from 15 to 18 March. Day tours to the Cliffs of Moher and Glendalough run all winter; days are short (sunset before 4.30pm in December) but rarely freezing.

Dublin Zoo in Phoenix Park, the Viking Splash tour, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, the Natural History ‘Dead Zoo’, Dublinia’s Viking and medieval Dublin, the Little Museum of Dublin with the hop-on bus, the Leprechaun Museum, the Guinness Storehouse (children go free with adults), a Liffey sightseeing cruise, the Book of Kells and the Long Room, Imaginosity in Sandyford, Malahide Castle and its fairy trail, the Howth cliff walk and seals at the harbour, Glendalough’s lakes and the sheepdog demonstration on the Wicklow tour and Tayto Park’s roller coasters (now Emerald Park).

May to September — the mildest weather, the longest evenings (light until 10pm in June) and every festival, from Bloomsday on 16 June to the Fringe in September. St. Patrick’s week in March is the busiest and most expensive. October to April is cheaper and quieter, with rain possible in any month and Christmas lights from late November. Pack a rain jacket whenever you come.

Yes for most visitors — the seven-storey self-guided tour ends with a pint in the Gravity Bar’s 360° view of the city, and the pour-your-own-pint academy is the fun upgrade; the standard ticket costs about €37 and is Ireland’s most-visited attraction. Book the first or last time slot to avoid the crowds, or pair it with the Jameson Distillery on the combined guided tour. If you only care about the beer, the Guinness at the Gravity Bar tastes the same as in any good Dublin pub — the view is what you pay for.