Dublin fits in two days. Ireland is the other five.
What the Guinness Storehouse ticket actually gets you. Whether the Cliffs of Moher work as a day trip. Which distillery pours the tasting worth paying for. Reviews of every tour and ticket you can book in Dublin.
A walk, a distillery, the mountains and the Atlantic.
The four bookings a first Dublin trip is built around, in the order most people take them. What each costs and what it buys you.
01The first morningDublin Highlights and Hidden Gems Guided Walking TourTwo and a half hours on foot through the Georgian squares and the old lanes, before the city fills up. It fixes the map in your head for the rest of the week.
02The Bow Street hourJameson Whiskey Distillery Tour with TastingsJameson on Smithfield, where the whiskey stopped being made in 1971 and the tasting still runs properly. Book an early slot and eat afterwards in the market.
03The mountain dayKilkenny, Wicklow Mountains & Glendalough Day Tour from DublinOver the Sally Gap into Glendalough, then Kilkenny on the way back. The one day out that never depends on the forecast.
04The long one westDublin to Cliffs of Moher, including Wild Atlantic Way and GalwayAcross the country to the Cliffs of Moher and back inside a day. Thirteen hours, most of it worth it, and the coach leaves before seven.
Every good Irish day trip leaves from a Dublin kerb at seven.
The country is small enough that Clare, Antrim and Kerry are all day trips, and long enough that the coach does the driving. Four directions out of the city, what each one costs and how much of it you spend on the road.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, including Wild Atlantic Way and Galway
West to ClareCliffs of Moher, the Burren, an hour in Galway. Thirteen hours door to door.
South to WicklowThe Sally Gap, a monastic valley and a sheepdog. Back for dinner.
North to AntrimBasalt columns, the Dark Hedges and Belfast, across a border you will not notice.
South to CorkRock of Cashel, the castle, and the stone everyone queues to kiss.
All 209 tours and tickets in Dublin →
Two drinks made this city, and both give tours.
St James’s Gate has been brewing since 1759 and Bow Street was distilling before that. The tickets are timed, the tastings are real, and the best of them end somewhere with a fire lit.
Dublin is a walking city that takes about three hours.
Every Dublin walk →
From Trinity’s front gate to the Castle, through the Liberties and back along the river, the whole centre is under two miles across. A guide is what turns a row of doors into eight hundred years of argument.
Book of Kells, and the room above it
The manuscript sits under glass and takes four minutes; the Long Room upstairs takes the rest of the hour. Slots go days ahead in summer, so buy before you fly.
The Castle, and what happened in it
Viking foundations under the yard, State Apartments above, and the handover of 1922 in the same courtyard. It answers more questions than the guidebook asks.
Body snatchers, gaols and the plague pits
The graveyards, the old hospital and the crimes that made the newspapers of the 1800s. Better told than it sounds, and it ends near a pub on purpose.
The Dublin bookings more travellers take than any other.
The whole Dublin shelf →The ones that fill their coaches and their timed slots first, with what each costs and what earns it the place.
1
Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, including Wild Atlantic Way and Galway
Travel from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway on a 13-hour Wild Rover Tours day trip. Expect a 4G Wi-Fi coach, guided stories, two hours at the cliffs, a short Burren stop, and free time in Galway. Guides such as David, Stephen, Sarah, Eve, and Daithi have led recent departures.
From · $90
Read our review →
2
Cliffs of Moher, Burren & Galway City Day Tour
from $89
3
Guinness Storehouse Entry Ticket
from $34
4
Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, Burren, Wild Atlantic Way, Galway Tour
from $94
5
Dublin to Belfast Black Cab, Dunluce Castle and Giant’s Causeway
from $96
6
Kilkenny, Wicklow Mountains & Glendalough Day Tour from Dublin
from $48
7
Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough & Kilkenny Tour
from $45
8
Irish Rock ‘N’ Roll Museum Experience Dublin
from $26
Twenty-five minutes on a green train and Dublin has cliffs.
Howth sits at the end of the northern line: a working pier, a loop walk round the head, and seals waiting under the fish shop. Southbound the same train reaches Dalkey and the Vico bathing place.
Every coast day out →
What a Dublin day out actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A surprising number of the good ones cost less than two pints and a toastie.
Walking tours, cathedral and museum entry, the distillery hour and the river cruise.
The full day out: Clare, Antrim, Kerry, the food walks and the long tasting menus.
Private drivers, multi-day runs round the coast and the trips that include a bed.
Three things Dublin has that nowhere else does.
Every European capital has a cathedral and a castle. A ninth-century gospel book, a brewery with a nine-thousand-year lease and a pub session that never became a performance are harder to copy.
The Book of Kells
Four gospels copied and painted by monks around the year 800, probably on Iona and finished here. Two volumes are shown at a time and the pages are turned every few weeks, so nobody sees the same book twice. The Long Room above it holds two hundred thousand volumes on oak shelves and smells exactly as you hope.
- 1Dublin Book of Kells, Castle and Molly Malone Statue Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,825 reviews
- 2Fast-Track Book of Kells Ticket & Dublin Castle Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,661 reviews
- 3St Patrick’s Cathedral, Book of Kells and Dublin Castle Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 882 reviews
The Storehouse
Arthur Guinness signed a nine-thousand-year lease on the site in 1759 at forty-five pounds a year, and the brewery is still on it. Seven floors of a former fermentation plant now explain the barley, the water and the two-part pour, and the glass bar on the roof gives you the only free view over the whole city.
- 1Guinness Storehouse Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 16,863 reviews
- 2Guinness Storehouse Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,629 reviews
- 3Skip-the-Line Guinness and Jameson Whiskey Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 771 reviews
A trad session
A session is not a concert. Players turn up with fiddles and boxes, sit in a circle in the corner, and work through tunes nobody announces. The dinner shows put it on a stage with dancers and a set menu; the pubs off Capel Street still do it the old way, for the price of a pint.
- 1Kilkenny, Wicklow & Glendalough Tour & Sheepdog Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,599 reviews
- 2Glendalough, Wicklow, Kilkenny and Sheepdog demonstration★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,215 reviews
- 3Dublin Irish House Party Live Show, Dinner Option Available★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,246 reviews
Four Dublin bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this city can be sorted the night before, over a pint, on a phone. These four run on timed entry slots and coach seats that are gone a week out in summer.
- 01Dublin Book of Kells, Castle and Molly Malone Statue Guided TourEntry is timed and the room is small. Summer slots go days ahead, and turning up at the gate is how people miss it.
- 02Guinness Storehouse Entry TicketTimed entry, and the last admission is well before closing. The cheap early slots are the first to disappear.
- 03Dublin to Cliffs of Moher, including Wild Atlantic Way and GalwayOne coach, one departure, thirteen hours. When the seats are gone the next chance is tomorrow.
- 04Jameson Whiskey Distillery Tour with TastingsThe tasting is capped at a table of a dozen. Weekend afternoons book out before the weekend starts.
Dublin gets rain on about half the days of the year. Plan for it.
It is rarely heavy and almost never lasts, but it arrives without warning and the wind off the bay makes an umbrella useless. The answer is a day built around rooms: a museum, a distillery floor, a long lunch, a session that starts at four.
By where the coach goes
The first-timer’s Dublin: two days in the city, one on the road.
The centre
Trinity
The Gate
Bow Street
HowthLast off the Dublin desk.
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