89 Best Sights in Dublin, Ireland

These shocking but beautiful bronze sculptures by artist Rowan Gillespie portray a few wasted victims of the Great Famine stumbling desperately along a road in search of salvation. The location, on Custom House Quay, is particularly appropriate as many of the ships carrying survivors to the New World left from here. A matching set of sculptures can be found on the other side of the Atlantic in Toronto. The nearby World Poverty Stone is another monument to the many people still suffering desperate deprivation throughout the world.

This 78-acre Edwardian estate, situated northwest of Phoenix Park and accessed via the main park road, includes Farmleigh House (which is full of antique furnishings and historic art, now used to accommodate visiting dignitaries), a working farm, walled and sunken gardens, wonderful picnic-friendly grounds, a regular organic food market, and a restaurant in the boathouse. Guided tours of the house last 45 minutes and are offered hourly on a first-come, first-served basis but are limited in size; moreover, the house may be closed on short notice if it is in use by the government.

The Irish are sports crazy and reserve their fiercest pride for their native games. In the bowels of Croke Park, the main stadium and headquarters of the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association), this museum gives you a great introduction to native Irish sport. The four Gaelic games (football, hurling, camogie, and handball) are explained in detail, and if you're brave enough you can have a go yourself. High-tech displays take you through the history and highlights of the games. National Awakening is a really smart, interesting short film reflecting the key impact of the GAA on the emergence of the Irish nation and the forging of a new Irish identity. The exhilarating A Day in September captures the thrill and passion of All Ireland finals day—the annual denouement of the intercounty hurling and Gaelic football seasons—which is every bit as important to the locals as the Super Bowl is to sports fans in the United States. Tours of the stadium, one of the largest in Europe, are available.

Dublin's premier photography gallery has a permanent collection of early-20th-century Irish photography and also puts on monthly exhibitions of work by contemporary Irish and international photographers. The gallery is an invaluable social record of Ireland. The bookstore is the best place in town to browse for photography books and to pick up arty postcards.

Opened 50 years after the Easter Rising of 1916, the garden in Parnell Square commemorates those who died fighting for Ireland's freedom. At the garden's entrance is a large plaza; steps lead down to the fountain area, graced with a sculpture by contemporary Irish artist Oisín Kelly, based on the mythological Children of Lír, who were turned into swans. The garden serves as an oasis of tranquility in the middle of the busy city.

The show begins here as soon as you walk into the auditorium, a gorgeously Georgian masterwork designed by Richard Johnston in 1784 as an assembly room for the Rotunda Hospital complex. The Gate has been one of Dublin's most important theaters since its founding in 1929 by Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards, who also founded Galway City's An Taibhdhearc as the national Irish-language theater. The Gate stages many established productions by Irish as well as foreign playwrights—and plenty of foreign actors have performed here, including Orson Welles (his first paid performance) and James Mason (early in his career).

The GPO's fame is based on the role it played in the fateful 1916 Easter Rising. The building, with its impressive Neoclassical facade, was designed by Francis Johnston and built by the British between 1814 and 1818 as a center of communications. This gave it great strategic importance—and was one of the reasons it was chosen by the insurgent forces in 1916 as a headquarters. Here, on Easter Monday, 1916, the Republican forces, about 2,000 in number and under the guidance of Pádraig Pearse and James Connolly, stormed the building and issued the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. After a week of shelling, the GPO lay in ruins; 13 rebels were ultimately executed, including Connolly, who was dying of gangrene from a wound in a leg shattered in the fighting and had to be propped up in a chair in front of the firing squad. Most of the original building was destroyed, though the facade survived, albeit with the scars of bullets on its pillars. Rebuilt and reopened in 1929, it is now home to GPO Witness History, an impressive interactive museum that brings to life the glory and horror of that violent uprising and the part this famous building played in it. It includes an original copy of the Proclamation of Independence. There's also a café.

This Victorian covered market fills the block between Drury Street and South Great George's Street. Around two dozen stalls sell books, prints, clothing (new and secondhand), local foodstuffs, and trinkets.

Glasnevin Cemetery, on the right-hand side of Finglas Road, is the best-known burial ground in Dublin. It's the site of the graves of many distinguished Irish leaders, including Eamon de Valera, a founding father of modern Ireland and a former Irish taoiseach (prime minister) and president, and Michael Collins, the celebrated hero of the Irish War of Independence. Other notables interred here include the late-19th-century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sir Roger Casement, a former British consul turned Irish nationalist, hanged for treason by the British in 1916. The large column to the right of the main entrance is the tomb of "The Liberator" Daniel O'Connell, perhaps Ireland's greatest historical figure, renowned for his nonviolent struggle for Catholic emancipation, achieved in 1829. The cemetery is freely accessible 24 hours a day. An impressive museum has a City of the Dead permanent exhibition that covers the burial practices and religious beliefs of the 1.5 million people buried in Glasnevin. The Milestone Gallery has exhibits on key historical figures buried here. They also run great tours of the cemetery itself. You can also climb the refurbished Round Tower, Ireland's tallest, with views of the whole city.

The swan song of British architecture in the capital, this enormous complex, a landmark of Edwardian Baroque, was the last Neoclassical edifice to be erected by the British government. It was designed by Sir Aston Webb, who did many of the similarly grand buildings in London's Piccadilly Circus, to serve as the College of Science in the early 1900s. Following a major restoration, these buildings became the offices of the Department of the taoiseach (the prime minister, pronounced tea-shuck) and the tánaiste (the deputy prime minister, pronounced tawn-ish-ta). Fine examples of contemporary Irish furniture and carpets populate the offices. A stained-glass window, known as "My Four Green Fields," was made by Evie Hone for the 1939 New York World's Fair. It depicts the four ancient provinces of Ireland: Munster, Ulster, Leinster, and Connacht. The government offices are accessible only via 35-minute guided tours; phone for details. The buildings are dramatically illuminated every night.

It's no more than 200 yards long and about 20 feet wide, but Grafton Street, open only to pedestrians, can claim to be the most humming street in the city, if not in all of Ireland. It's one of Dublin's vital spines: the most direct route between the front door of Trinity College and St. Stephen's Green, and the city's premier shopping street, with Dublin's most distinguished department store, Brown Thomas, as well as tried and trusted Marks & Spencer. Grafton Street and the smaller alleyways that radiate off it offer independent stores, a dozen or so colorful flower sellers, and some of the Southside's most popular watering holes. In summer, buskers from all over the world line both sides of the street, pouring out the sounds of drum, whistle, pipe, and string.

At the heart of the whole docklands development, this 10,000-square-meter, modernist square was designed by American landscape architect Martha Schwartz. Situated just to the west of the dock, with one side facing out onto the water, the sloping glass of the Daniel Libeskind--designed theater dominates the square's east side, while the black-and-white checkerboard Marker Hotel is to the north. The unusual red, resin glass-paved surface is supposed to reflect a "carpet" spilling out of the theater and into the public square.

Every Dubliner has a story about meeting someone on this cast-iron Victorian bridge, a heavily trafficked footbridge that crosses the Liffey at a prime spot—Temple Bar is on the south side, and the bridge provides the fastest route to the thriving Mary and Henry Streets shopping areas to the north. Until early in the 20th century, a halfpenny toll was charged to cross it. Congestion on the Ha'penny was relieved with the opening of the Millennium Footbridge a few hundred yards up the river. A refurbishment, including new railings, a return to the original white color, and tasteful lighting at night, has given the bridge a new lease on life.

The Howth Castle Gardens, next door to the Transport Museum and accessible from the Deer Park Hotel, were laid out in the early 18th century. The many rare varieties in the fine rhododendron garden are in full flower April through June; there are also high beech hedges. The rambling castle, built in 1654 and considerably altered in the following centuries, is not open to the public, but you can access the ruins of a tall, square, 16th-century castle and a Neolithic dolmen.

One of the last such burial grounds in Dublin, this cemetery was used in the late 17th century by French Protestants who had fled persecution in their native land. The cemetery gates are rarely open, but you can view the grounds from the street—it's on the northeast corner across from the square.

Separated from Howth Harbour by a channel nearly 1½ km (1 mile) wide is the little island of Ireland's Eye, with an old stone church on the site of a 6th-century monastery, and an early-19th-century Martello tower. In calm summer weather, local boatmen make the crossing to the island from the East pier in Howth Harbour. Check the notice board in the harbor for the number of a boat owner willing to do the trip.

The opening of the IFI in a former Quaker meetinghouse helped to launch the revitalization of Temple Bar. It has three comfortable art-house cinemas showing revivals and new independent films, the Irish Film Archive, a bookstore for cineastes, and a popular bar and restaurant-café, all of which make this one of the neighborhood's most vital cultural institutions and the place to be seen. On Saturday nights in summer, films screen outdoors on Meeting House Square.

Housed in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, the Irish Museum of Modern Art concentrates on the work of contemporary Irish artists along with regular international exhibitions. Artists such as Richard Deacon, Richard Gorman, Dorothy Cross, Sean Scully, Matt Mullican, Louis le Brocquy, and James Coleman are included in the collection. The museum also displays works by some non-Irish 20th-century greats, including Picasso and Miró, plus recent hotshots like Damien Hirst, and regularly hosts touring shows from major European museums. The café serves light fare including soups and sandwiches, and has a cool kids play area. It's a short ride by taxi or bus from the city center and there is a LUAS stop nearby.

Housed in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, the Irish Museum of Modern Art concentrates on the work of contemporary Irish artists along with regular international exhibitions. Artists such as Richard Deacon, Richard Gorman, Dorothy Cross, Sean Scully, Matt Mullican, Louis le Brocquy, and James Coleman are included in the collection. The museum also displays works by some non-Irish 20th-century greats, including Picasso and Miró, plus recent hotshots like Damien Hirst, and regularly hosts touring shows from major European museums. The café serves light fare including soups and sandwiches, and has a cool kids' play area. It's a short ride by taxi or bus from the city center and there is a LUAS stop nearby.

Talk about exclusive—until 1960, the only way to reach this club was by boat. It was about as remote as you could get and still be only 24 km (15 miles) from Dublin. But things have changed. The Island has opened its doors to reveal a fine links course with holes that force you to navigate between spectacular sand dunes toward small, challenging greens.

Few may have read him, but everyone in Ireland has at least heard of James Joyce (1882–1941)—especially since owning a copy of his censored and suppressed Ulysses was one of the top status symbols of the early 20th century. Joyce is, of course, now acknowledged as one of the greatest modern authors, and Dubliners, Finnegans Wake, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man can even be read as quirky "travel guides" to Dublin. Open to the public, this restored 18th-century Georgian town house, once the dancing academy of Professor Denis J. Maginni (which many will recognize from a reading of Ulysses), is a center for Joycean studies and events related to the author. It has an extensive library and archives, exhibition rooms, a bookstore, and a café. The collection includes letters from Beckett, Joyce's guitar and cane, and a celebrated edition of Ulysses illustrated by Matisse. The interactive exhibition James Joyce and Ulysses allows you to delve into the mysteries and controversies of the novel. The center is the main organizer of "Bloomstime," which marks the week leading up to the Bloomsday celebrations. (Bloomsday, June 16, is the single day Ulysses chronicles, as Leopold Bloom winds his way around Dublin in 1904.)

This township is chiefly known for its glorious Malahide Castle, a picture-book castle occupied by the Talbot family from 1185 until 1976, when it was sold to the local County Council. The great expanse of parkland around the castle has more than 5,000 different species of trees and shrubs, all clearly labeled. The castle itself combines styles and crosses centuries; the earliest section, the three-story tower house, dates from the 12th century. The stunning walled gardens are now open to the public, with a fairy trail for kids and a butterfly house. Hung with many family portraits, the medieval great hall is the only one in Ireland that is preserved in its original form. Authentic 18th-century pieces furnish the other rooms. An impressive new addition includes a visitor center, the Avoca restaurant, and a shop.

When Ireland's first public library was founded and endowed in 1701 by Narcissus Marsh, the archbishop of Dublin, it was made open to "All Graduates and Gentlemen." The two-story brick Georgian building has remained virtually the same since then. It houses a priceless collection of 250 manuscripts and 25,000 15th- to 18th-century books. Many of these rare volumes were locked inside cages, as were the readers who wished to peruse them. The cages were to discourage the often impecunious students, who may have been tempted to make the books their own. The library has been restored with great attention to its original architectural details, especially in the book stacks. It's a short walk west from St. Stephen's Green and is accessed through a charming little cottage garden.

A spectacular retractable canopy of four 70-foot "umbrellas" has turned this already vibrant square into a year-round playground for Dubliners. The square, which is behind the Ark children's center and accessed via Curved Street, takes its name from a nearby Quaker meetinghouse. Today it's something of a gathering place for Dublin's youth and artists. Numerous cultural events—classic movies, theater, games, and family programs—take place here. (Thankfully, seats can be installed for screenings.) The square is also a favorite site for the continuously changing street sculpture that pops up all over Temple Bar (artists commissioned by the city sometimes create oddball pieces, such as half of a Volkswagen protruding from a wall). The square is also a great spot to sit, people-watch, and take in the sounds of the performing buskers who swarm to the place. There's also an organic food market here every Saturday all day.

Irishman Brian Boru, who led his soldiers to victory against the Vikings in the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, was said to have pitched camp before the confrontation on the site of Mountjoy Square. Playwright Sean O'Casey lived here, at No. 35, and used the square as a setting for The Shadow of a Gunman. Built over the course of the two decades leading up to 1818, this Northside square was once surrounded by elegant terraced houses. Today only the northern side remains intact. The houses on the once derelict southern side have been converted into apartments.

The National Botanic Gardens, on the northeastern flank of Glasnevin Cemetery and the south bank of the Tolka River, date from 1795 and have more than 20,000 varieties of plants, a rose garden, and a vegetable garden. The main attraction is the beautifully restored Curvilinear Range—400-foot-long greenhouses designed and built by a Dublin ironmaster, Richard Turner, between 1843 and 1869. The Great Palm House, with its striking double dome, was built in 1884 and houses orchids, palms, and tropical ferns. Inspiring free guided tours are offered Sunday at noon and 2:30.

Along with works by W. B. Yeats (1923), George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969), and Seamus Heaney (1995), the National Library contains first editions of every major Irish writer, including books by Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, and James Joyce (who used the library as the scene of the great literary debate in Ulysses). In addition, almost every book ever published in Ireland is kept here, along with an unequaled selection of old maps and an extensive collection of Irish newspapers and magazines—more than 5 million items in all.

The library is housed in a rather stiff Neoclassical building with colonnaded porticoes and an excess of ornamentation—it's not one of Dublin's architectural showpieces. But inside, the main Reading Room, opened in 1890 to house the collections of the Royal Dublin Society, has a dramatic dome ceiling, beneath which countless authors have researched and written. The personal papers of greats such as W. B. Yeats are also on display. The library also has a free genealogical consultancy service that can advise you on how to trace your Irish ancestors.

This important photographic resource holds regular exhibitions in its stylish modern building in Temple Bar. The collection comprises approximately 600,000 photographs, most of which are Irish, making up a priceless visual history of the nation. Although most of the photographs are historical, dating as far back as the mid-19th century, there are also a large number of contemporary pictures. Subject matter ranges from topographical views to studio portraits, from political events to early tourist photographs. You can also buy a print of your favorite photo.