Dublin for Christmas
 

We are planning to stay in Dublin for 4 days at Christmas.
i would love to have ideas about attending a Christmas religious service, and also about where we might have a nice Christmas dinner.
Any events that we should know about?
thank you

oh, and we wanted to stay at the Buswells, but it seems to be booked for Christmas....what would be your recommendation?

All the churches will have nice services, some recommendations in the city centre would be Christchurch or St Patricks (Church of Ireland) or the University Church on St Stephens Green (Catholic). However I think the first step is to batten down the accommodation. Everything is closed here on Christmas Day - there is no public transport, so the church you pick will be totally dependent on where you are staying. All of the restaurants will also be closed; the only places offering meals on Christmas Day are the hotels. Many hotels will be closed on Christmas Day and the ones that are not closed offer Christmas packages that will be booked out very quickly by people trying to escape the hassle of making a Christmas meal. At this stage of the year I cannot emphasise how urgently you need to figure out your accommodation, and we can help with all of the other details afterwards once you have figured that out.

Hotel
 

Yes, I plan to try to make that reservation today !!
any suggestions for a pleasant hotel centrally located ?
we will be without a car...

Backing up what littlejane said. Those hotels offering meals on Christmas day are likely to do so only for residents.

You will probably need to book a hotel offering a Christmas package (accommodation, meals, and entertainment). These can be expensive. Do a search for "christmas packages dublin". I had a quick look, and I didn't see anything that I would advise you to avoid. But you might already be too late.

An alternative is to rent an apartment and do your own catering.

[I remember a poster a few years ago who tried to spend Christmas in Ireland without booking into a place offering Christmas dinner. He managed to find B&B accommodation, but for his dinner all he could get was a takeaway sandwich at a filling station.]

We had a nice stay a few years back at the Shelbourne. Looks like they have a "Festive" package. Lovely hotel, excellent location....not inexpensive.
https://www.shelbournedining.ie/wp-c...ourne-2018.pdf

Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas is also not an easy time to be a tourist in Dublin either. I reiterate what others said above about getting on this asap.

Thank you everyone....
upon realizing that 2 months ahead of Christmas is considered “last minute”, and looking at the inflated airline rates, we decided to visit a bit earlier in December.....
reservations are made...we have been to Ireland before, but never during holiday time...looking forward to it!!!
thanks again for all your help. I am a long-time user to the Fodor’s forums but lost my original login benefits when I changed my e-mail address.
It is generous community.....

I think many of us have lost our passwords with new email servers. I lost mine once with aol. I think the build up for Christmas will be better. We are doing the Christmas markets and we got the best flight prices ever. Glad it worked out for you.

I think you made a wise decision. I was there in early December a couple years ago and it was quite pretty.