Things to Do in County Dublin

More about County Dublin

Where to stay, and what it will cost you

Dublin hotel rates are high by European standards and they spike hard, so the date matters more than the district. Rugby internationals at the Aviva Stadium, big summer concerts, the St Patrick’s weekend and the late-August bank holiday can double a room rate; book those months ahead or move your dates.

South of the river around Dame Street and Grafton Street puts you inside walking distance of nearly everything, but rooms overlooking Temple Bar are genuinely loud until 2am at weekends — pick a back room or stay a few streets off. The north quays and the Docklands are quieter and often cheaper, with the Luas red line running in. Ballsbridge is the leafy option, ten minutes by DART from the centre and handy for the Aviva and the RDS.

If the coast is what you came for, sleep on it. Howth, Malahide and Skerries all have hotels and guesthouses, all sit on the northern rail line, and all give you a harbour and a beach at the end of the day for less than the city centre charges. Whichever you choose, do not plan on driving in — city parking is expensive and the one-way system is punishing. Get a Leap card and use the DART and Luas.

The bay, the DART and the swimming

Dublin Bay is a UNESCO biosphere and the DART runs along the edge of it, which makes the coastal trail the single best day out in the county for anyone without a car. Northbound, North Bull Island is a sand spit that grew after the Bull Wall was built in 1825 — a bird reserve now, with a long flat strand behind it. Burrow Beach at Sutton is the local’s swim, sheltered and shallow. At the end of the line, the cliff path round Howth Head does a loop of about 6 km past the Baily Lighthouse; the Black Linn version climbs to the summit for the view back over the bay. Boats run from Howth harbour out to Ireland’s Eye in summer, weather allowing.

Southbound, Sandymount Strand goes out for a kilometre at low tide and is more a walk than a swim. Killiney Hill is a twenty-minute climb to an obelisk raised in 1742 as famine relief work, and the view down the coast from it is the one people mean when they compare Dublin to the Bay of Naples. Dalkey below it has the castle, the pubs and the boats to the island.

Up into the mountains

The Dublin Mountains start where the suburbs stop, and they are close enough that you can be on moorland forty minutes after leaving the city. Ticknock Forest is the standard trip — forest roads up to the Fairy Castle cairn, with the whole city laid out below — but the car park fills by mid-morning on any decent weekend. Cruagh Wood is a quieter alternative on the same ridge. Further up, the Military Road crosses the Featherbeds, open blanket bog with nothing between you and Wicklow, and Glenasmole hides two reservoirs and some of the best low-level walking in the county. The Dublin Mountains Way links the whole lot in about 43 km from Shankill to Tallaght. Bring layers: it is reliably several degrees colder and wetter than the city, and the fog comes in fast.

Fingal and the north county

North Dublin is where the county stops feeling like a city. Malahide Castle held the Talbot family from 1185 until 1976, which is close to a record, and the walled garden and parkland are worth as much time as the house tour. Swords Castle, the medieval archbishop’s palace, is free to walk into. Ardgillan above Balbriggan has terraced gardens looking straight out at the Mourne Mountains on a clear day, and open parkland that never feels busy.

The beaches up here are the county’s best: Portrane has two strands and a Martello tower, and Skerries has windmills and a working harbour. Offshore, Rockabill holds one of Europe’s largest roseate tern colonies and Lambay has a herd of wallabies descended from 1980s escapees — both are private, so you view them from a boat rather than landing.

Wet days, free museums and the evening

Dublin has more free indoor options than most cities. Collins Barracks is a branch of the National Museum in an 18th-century square, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art occupies the old Royal Hospital at Kilmainham — both free, both rarely crowded. Dublinia beside Christ Church is the one to bring children to, and EPIC in the vaults of the CHQ Building covers emigration. Note that the Hugh Lane Gallery is closed for redevelopment and is not expected to reopen before 2028, so don’t build a day around it.

For the evening, skip the marked-up pints in the tourist lanes. Capel Street has been pedestrianised and now holds the best concentration of small restaurants in the city, and Parnell Street is where to eat Chinese and Korean. The National Concert Hall programmes cheaply if you look, and if you want the full staged version of a session, Johnnie Fox’s up at Glencullen has been doing it a long time and does it well.