Fourteen of the 1916 leaders were shot in the Stonebreakers’ Yard at Kilmainham Gaol, and the one-hour guided tour is still the only way in, so book ahead. In the medieval core, Christ Church Cathedral stands over the largest medieval crypt in Britain or Ireland, with a Magna Carta, royal silver and the mummified cat and rat known as Tom and Jerry down in the vaults. St Patrick’s, a few streets south, is the biggest church in the country and holds Jonathan Swift’s grave in the south aisle.
Most of the places here sit in the city centre and can be strung together on foot: the Abbey Theatre on Lower Abbey Street, two minutes from the Luas; Dublin City Hall on Dame Street; and the CHQ Building, an 1820 bonded warehouse built without timber to make it fireproof and free to walk into. Croppies’ Acre, the 1798 burial ground on Wolfe Tone Quay, is next door to the National Museum at Collins Barracks.
The rest need a journey out. Glasnevin puts the national cemetery and the Botanic Gardens side by side on the northside, linked by a gate in the dividing wall; Clondalkin’s round tower stands six miles west, still capped with its original conical roof; and at Ballybrack a Neolithic portal tomb sits in a council estate near the DART. Cathedrals and museums carry a wet day; the cemetery, the canal towpath at Broom Bridge and the open-air sites are better dry.
The prison where fourteen leaders of the 1916 Rising were shot, seen only on a one-hour guided tour through the cell blocks, yard and chapel.
Founded around 1030 by Dublin's Viking king, with the largest medieval crypt in Britain or Ireland below and Strongbow's tomb up in the nave.
Ireland's biggest church, where Jonathan Swift lies buried, a choir has sung since 1432 and the Door of Reconciliation gave English 'to chance your arm'.
The first state-subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world, open since 1904, still staging work on the main stage and in the 100-seat Peacock studio.
A Neolithic portal tomb standing in an outer south Dublin council estate, a short walk from Killiney Hill and the DART line.
60 of 60 shown — tap a pin for the place.
Kilmainham, dublin
Fourteen leaders of the 1916 Rising were shot in the Stonebreakers' Yard here, among thousands of ordinary prisoners held since 1796. The one-hour guided tour – the only way in – moves through the cell blocks, the yard and the chapel where Joseph Plunkett married Grace Gifford hours before his execution. Book well ahead.
Christ Church Place, dublin
Founded around 1030 by Dublin's Viking king Sitric Silkenbeard and its first bishop, Dúnán, Christ Church sits above the largest medieval crypt in Britain or Ireland. Down in the 12th-century vaults are a rare Magna Carta, royal silver, the heart of St Laurence O'Toole and the mummified cat and rat known as Tom and Jerry. Strongbow, who took Dublin in 1170, is buried in the nave.
Dublin, dublin
The biggest church in Ireland, and the one where Jonathan Swift – author of Gulliver's Travels and its most cantankerous dean – lies buried in the south aisle he never asked for. Inside you'll also find the Door of Reconciliation that gave English the phrase 'to chance your arm', a choir singing since 1432, and 800 years of Dublin memorials.
26/27 Lower Abbey Street, dublin
Founded by Yeats and Lady Gregory and open since 27 December 1904, the Abbey was the first state-subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world, survived riots in 1907 and a fire in 1951, and launched O’Casey, Behan and Friel. Main-stage seats start at €15, the Peacock studio seats just over 100 for new work, and a 90-minute backstage tour costs €18. The Luas stops two minutes away – don’t bother driving.
Ballybrack, dublin
Ballybrack is an outer south Dublin suburb whose oldest sight, the Shanganagh Cromlech, is a Neolithic portal tomb sitting in a council estate. It was home to Michael Davitt, Seán Lemass and the creator of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, and sits a short walk from Killiney Hill and the DART.
Cabra, dublin
On 16 October 1843, walking the Royal Canal towpath with his wife, William Rowan Hamilton cut the quaternion formula into Broom Bridge with a penknife. The carving is long gone, but a plaque under the railing marks the spot, and mathematicians retrace his walk from Dunsink Observatory every 16 October. It's a plain suburban canal bridge, best paired with nearby Glasnevin.
Dublin, dublin
A Liffey-side Dublin village that predates the city and takes its name from a chapel of Iseult, of Tristan and Iseult fame. Come for the literary past – Le Fanu and Joyce both wrote it into their fiction – the Strawberry Beds riverside walk, and a community festival each July.
Dublin, dublin
Dublin's most impressive late-Georgian industrial building was put up in 1820 without a single piece of timber, to make it fireproof, and gave the city its largest clear-span interior. Today the old bonded warehouse is free to walk into, with the EPIC emigration museum down in the wine vaults, a ground-floor food hall and Urban Brewing's microbrewery.
Clondalkin, dublin
Clondalkin, six miles west of Dublin, is built around one of Ireland's most complete round towers, 25.6 metres tall and still capped with its original conical roof. Alongside it sit the 300-acre Corkagh Park and Áras Chrónáin, an Irish cultural centre with regular traditional music.
Clondalkin, dublin
Clondalkin's round tower is the slimmest in Ireland and one of the few that kept its original conical cap, built around 790 AD as part of St Mochua's monastery. You can't climb it, but the free Brú Chrónáin visitor centre and garden at its base tell the story – when they're open, so check ahead.
Dublin, dublin
Croppies' Acre is a small riverside park on Wolfe Tone Quay, traditionally the burial ground of United Irishmen executed after the 1798 Rebellion. A 1985 granite memorial and a 1998 dedication marker carry the names and words of the dead; the National Museum at Collins Barracks is next door.
Dame Street, dublin
Rising from an 18th-century mercantile exchange, Dublin City Hall now houses a sleek multimedia exhibition that narrates the capital’s evolution. The marble-floored Rotunda preserves its historic grandeur, while digital displays bring modern storytelling into the same vaulted space.
Glasnevin, dublin
Glasnevin holds two of Dublin's best free days out side by side: Ireland's national cemetery, where Daniel O'Connell, Michael Collins and Parnell are buried beneath a 180-ft round tower, and the National Botanic Gardens, with Richard Turner's Victorian glasshouses. A gate in the dividing wall links the two.
Glasnevin, dublin
More people are buried in Glasnevin than live in Dublin today: over 1.5 million graves across 124 acres on the northside. Daniel O'Connell campaigned for the ground so Catholics could be buried with a ceremony, and his 55m round tower now looks over the graves of Michael Collins, Parnell, Markievicz, Brendan Behan and Luke Kelly. Entry to the grounds is free; the museum and tower climb are ticketed.
Dublin, dublin
Grattan Bridge is the third crossing on a Dublin site first bridged in 1676, when it was Essex Bridge. Its 1870s remodelling gave it the cast-iron lamp standards topped with sea-horses that still define it, best seen lit at dusk over the Liffey in Temple Bar.
Dublin, dublin
The elegant off-white arch of the Ha’penny Bridge has spanned the River Liffey since 1816, when it charged a halfpenny toll to match the ferry it replaced. Today around 30,000 people cross it a day, making it one of Dublin’s busiest and most photographed pedestrian crossings.
Montpelier Hill, dublin
Silent Neolithic stones once marked this summit before an 18th-century hunting lodge rose above the Dublin Mountains. Today the vaulted ruin stands open to the public, offering sweeping city views alongside enduring tales of secret societies and midnight revelry.
Thomas Street, dublin
The spire of John’s Lane Church is the tallest in Dublin, over 200 feet above Thomas Street. Edward Welby Pugin designed it; Fenian workmen built it over 33 years. Inside are windows by Mayer of Munich and the Harry Clarke studio; the tower, with its ten bells, can be climbed by appointment.
Rush, dublin
Kenure House was a Georgian mansion near Rush in north County Dublin, demolished in 1978; all that survives is George Papworth's huge granite portico, now standing alone in a public park. During the 1960s the house was a film set – on the shoot for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, a crew member found a Bronze Age bowl of cremated remains on a mantelpiece. The park is free, open dawn to dusk, with a fenced off-leash area for dogs.
Dublin, dublin
Leinster House, on Kildare Street, is the working home of the Dáil and Seanad – Ireland’s parliament – in a 1740s Georgian building that James Hoban borrowed from when he designed the White House. The façade is free to see from the street, but interior tours are now limited to visitors a TD or Senator has sponsored.
Dublin, dublin
You can't walk across the Loopline Bridge – it's an active railway – so it's a thing to look at, not use. Built in 1889–91 to link Dublin's north and south rail lines, its iron lattice crosses the Liffey six metres up, blocking the old view of the Custom House that Dubliners still resent.
Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, dublin
A south Dublin suburb on the N11, with a 4,500-year-old portal tomb tucked into a housing estate, a Georgian house built over a medieval castle, and a famine-era workhouse that is now St Columcille's Hospital. It is a handy, well-connected stop rather than a day out in itself.
Dublin 2, dublin
Dublin Corporation bought this Dawson Street townhouse in 1715 for £3,500 and a yearly loaf of sugar, and it has been the Lord Mayor's residence ever since. Its Round Room hosted the first sitting of Dáil Éireann in 1919 and the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It opens to the public only a few days a year.
Temple Bar, dublin
The Millennium Bridge is a 51m steel footbridge linking Temple Bar to the north quays, prefabricated in Carlow and swung into place from a pontoon in about 30 minutes in December 1999. It is a functional crossing rather than a sight in itself, best known for the chewing-gum art stuck along its rails and the coloured LED lighting after dark.
O’Connell Street, dublin
Nelson’s Pillar stood on O’Connell Street from 1809 until a republican bomb sheared off its top at 1.32am on 8 March 1966. Visitors once paid ten pence to climb 168 steps for the best view in Dublin. Today the Spire marks the spot, and Nelson’s 13-foot head survives in the Gilbert Library on Pearse Street.
Donabate, dublin
Newbridge House is one of the most intact Georgian houses in Ireland, because the Cobbe family lived here for nearly 300 years and never sold or moved the contents. The demesne runs to about 400 acres, with a working farm, a 1765 walled garden and parkland on Dublin's north edge.
Dublin, dublin
One of very few bridges in Europe wider than it is long – about 50m across but only 45m from bank to bank. Built as Carlisle Bridge in 1794, then widened and renamed for Daniel O'Connell in 1880, it was also the daily pitch of street photographer Arthur Fields.
Phoenix Park, dublin
This 35-metre steel cross was thrown up in Phoenix Park for Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit, when 1.25 million people – roughly a third of the country – gathered to hear him. It was only ever meant to be temporary, but it is still standing, and Pope Francis said Mass here in 2018 to a crowd of 130,000.
Dublin, dublin
The parliament that sat on College Green voted itself out of existence in 1800, and the building has been the Bank of Ireland ever since. It was the world's first purpose-built two-chamber parliament house, and though the Commons chamber is long gone, the House of Lords survives intact, with its coffered oak ceiling, its 1788 chandelier and the great Battle of the Boyne tapestry. Entry is free.
121-122 James’s Street, dublin
Pearse Lyons Distillery occupies the former Church of St James on James's Street, in Dublin's Liberties. Dr Pearse Lyons bought the derelict building in 2013 and spent €20 million restoring it, fitting copper-pot stills beneath a new glass steeple and reopening to the public in 2017. It is the only independently family-owned distillery in the city, and tours start at €20.
Pigeon House Rd, dublin
The Pigeon House gathers three eras on the Poolbeg peninsula: a granite hotel of 1793–95 named after the caretaker John Pidgeon, a fort of 1814, and the brick shell of a station that in 1903 was the first in the world to generate three-phase power. It is open ground with no gate and no facilities – no railings on the sea wall, no café closer than Ringsend. Two boys set out for the Pigeon House and never quite reach it in Joyce's 'An Encounter'.
Dublin, dublin
In the first days of May 1916, more than 3,000 captured rebels were held at Richmond Barracks in Inchicore, and it was here that most of the Rising's leaders were court-martialled in the gymnasium. The restored complex now holds a library, a walled garden and a café, with tours out to Goldenbridge Cemetery and a strong section on the 77 women arrested after the Rising.
123 St. Stephen's Green, dublin
The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland fronts St Stephen's Green with a Georgian façade completed in 1810 and still bullet-scarred from Easter Week 1916. Founded by royal charter in 1784, it remains a working health-sciences university; public access centres on the new Humanarium exhibition space and the archive reading room.
Seapoint, dublin
This squat stone Martello tower has stood over Seapoint since 1805, built to watch for a French invasion that never came. It later served as a boat club and then the home of the Genealogical Society of Ireland, and is mostly shut up now – but the sheltered beach at its foot is one of south Dublin's favourite spots for a sea swim, five minutes from the DART.
Dublin, dublin
St Audoen's on Cornmarket is Dublin's only medieval parish church still in use. Three of its bells were cast in 1423, the oldest still rung in Ireland; inside are a 15th-century knight's tomb and a 9th-century 'lucky stone'. Free entry and free guided tours in season.
Dublin 8, dublin
The Gothic church at the top of James's Street lost its spire to lightning in 1948, was deconsecrated in 1963, then reopened in 2017 as Pearse Lyons Distillery, copper stills working under the original stained glass. It is also a Camino passport office, the traditional Irish setting-off point for Santiago. The graveyard beside it holds an estimated 100,000 burials.
Dublin, dublin
Two rooms below the modern streets off Capel Street are all that survives of St Mary's Abbey, once the wealthiest Cistercian monastery in Ireland. The vaulted Chapter House holds the earliest rib-vault of any Irish Cistercian house, and it is where Silken Thomas threw down his sword of state and rebelled in 1534. Entry is free, but only on the OPW's guided tour.
Dublin, dublin
James Gandon's Custom House has stood over the Liffey since 1791, its long façade and Edward Smyth's carved river-god heads best seen free from the south quay. The visitor centre inside traces the building, the 1921 IRA fire that gutted it and killed nine, and the restoration that followed.
Howth Castle Gardens, dublin
Dublin, dublin
Strawberry Beds, dublin
Dublin, dublin
Dublin, dublin
Dublin, dublin
Donaghmede, dublin
Skerries, dublin
Lucan, dublin
Lucan, dublin
Lusk, dublin
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Merrion Square Park, dublin
Skerries, dublin
Blackhorse Avenue, dublin
Portrane, dublin
Ballycullen Road, dublin
Lucan, dublin
Sutton, dublin
Tallaght, dublin
Dublin, dublin
Southwest Dublin, dublin
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