We are planning a trip to Ireland in May - two quick questions, are there any museums/attractions in Dublin where it is advisable to buy advance tickets ?

And has anyone taken either the 1916 rebellion walking tour or the music pub crawl "tour" (it only crawls to 2 pubs which is probably enough for us)? and if so did you enjoy.
thanks

Hi lauramsgarden,
The two museums/attractions that I am aware of that require advance reservations are the Kilmainham Gaol and the Book of Kells. I read somewhere for you can't reserve tickets for the Kilmainham Gaol until 28 days prior. I think it has to be on the 28th day because tickets sell out fast. You go online and purchase your tickets in Dublin time. Very similar to how you purchase tickets for The Last Supper in Milan.

The Immigration Museum was well done. We got right in.

We did this Trad crawl, I think, in 2013: https://www.musicalpubcrawl.com/ The one guy looks the same.

We'd already been to Ireland several times, but never to Dublin, and we needed to find good Trad pubs fast. This was a good Trad "primer," and after it, when we tipped the guys, we asked them for a quick list of their five fave Trad pubs. That pretty much set us up for our week.

Seconding what Karen said re Kilmainham Gaol - tickets book out quickly so be sure to diarise when ticket sales open for the day(s) you're interested in.

I did a pub crawl with Yellow Umbrella tours and loved it! They took us to traditional pubs (or so I was told) and we had a lovely time.

I just cannot emphasize enough how much our Kilmainham Gaol tour impacted us. It was March and we were cold as heck, and the guide told us none of those cells were heated. We got the point pronto.

Reading ahead of the Kilmainham Gaol visit was important to me (I can never convince my husband, who reads about everything financial and world politics daily, to read historical things before we get there). I decided to go down the "light" path of historical fiction--Morgan Llywelyn’s Irish Century series--first. I than filled it in with hard core historical books, because it's great to read or hear a story and then attach (or disprove) facts.
You will need to know that the Troubles of Belfast, just a short train ride from Dublin, happened centuries before.

thanks Karen, Alessandra and Widiowa, andVictoria. I don't know how I missed the Kilmainham gaol in my explorations of what to do as learning about the history is pretty much our main focus. The site says to definitely get the tickets 28 days in advance so I will mark my calendar. Maybe we'll do it on the 8th Karen

I'm curious about what folks think of the Book of Kells. We only have so much time so how to allocate. I know we want to do the Epic museum and the old post office and the customs house, and I was interested in the National Gallery - and then of course there's the day trips north and south. I know we won't hit it all.

The musicpubcrawl was the one recommended by the fodors guide book and I looked at it online. I liked that it seemed contained and something doable for us older fogies (I've been an Irish/celtic music addict for easily 40 years) I'll check out Yellow Umbellas tour as well.

and thanks Alessandra for the book recommendations. I always try to read novels set in whatever location we are headed as it gives a sense of energy and place and history. I started James Joyce and totally punked out (I think the internet has destroyed my attention span) as well as some of the more serious authors. I love reading anything Tana French, especially her more recent ones. I shall check out Morgan Llywellyn. onwards.

No sure how much time you have, but we took an early train to Belfast and then a taxi to the Titanic Experience. We had planned several hours but were quite moved and could not leave and almost missed the train back. We did it in a day, which meant we had very little time in Belfast, but it was a great day trip..

I have a question about the tickets for the Kilmainham Gaol. When counting backwards 28 days to determine what day the tickets will go on sale for our date, do I count the actual day we want to visit the Gaol? I apologize for hijacking Laura's thread but hopefully my question will help her, too.

lauramsgarden

Count me as underwhelmed by the Book of Kells. I have no idea why all three of us were "meh" because we "do" museums pretty darn well as a rule. Maybe we needed a better context. It's a mystery.

Admission to the Guinness thing was included in our Hop On. It would never have been our pitstop otherwise. The view at the top, hey not bad but not worth our time. The constant sales pitch, horrendous. We do admit, however, that we DID LOVE the exhibit Guinness historical advertising. The original Guinness campaign would have made the NYC Madison Avenue world proud from the get-go on their approach.

I was so happy to read you latch onto fiction as your history starters too.

As to James Joyce--don't get me started. I was an English major where I was force-fed the guy, and I always felt something was "off" about him, and quite frankly, about my professors, always male, who raved about him. As time went on, I learned why my gut was right. His treatment of Sylvia Beach, the owner of Shakespeare & Company in Paris, stands out as a testament to his true character. Yeah, yeah, yeah--one can't judge an artist's art by the artist's PG rating, I know that. But in my book, this guy was a total creep and I never enjoyed reading him.

Other than our love of Dublin's unique Trad pubs and the Nashville-type aspect of Temple Bar (don't put down Temple bar down as just touristy--when one can just walk down the street eating an ice cream cone and hear some really good musicians through the doorways, that's lovely!), my fave parts of visiting Dublin remain traipsing through St Stephen's Green (OSCAR WILDE ROCKS), the Kilmainham Gaol, and walking back and forth across the Liffey. In Dublin, we were in constant conversation with locals, talking beer, politics and utter nonsense. What fun.

Which pubs were your favorites? And favorite because of the food or the music? Thanks!

Trophywife2007--Many of the pubs we liked in 2013 were gone in depth of talent or gone period by the time we made it back to Dublin years later, so I won't be much help for Dublin right now. For true pure instrumental Trad, though, the Cobblestone was and still is the real deal. Get there early and grab stools at the bar that can face the musician's corner. Conversation drowns out the sound if you're elsewhere in the room because the musicians aren't amped.

That type of Trad may not be your style--and we sure don't want hours and hours of it either. We like to hear those great Irish voices*. To that end, I always download a list of local Trad sessions with exact times from the internet before we go anywhere as a starting point. We always have two or more sessions in mind because if we don't like a performer or the pub, we just head off to another. Our best practice has always been to ask the locals in the audience or the actual performer(s) about where is good to go next. If the performer(s) is/are REALLY good, we'll approach them after their set and ask when and where they'll be playing next. One duo we really loved years ago played in three different pubs during our stay, and we were front and center for all, probably much to their embarrassment.