A weekend break in Dublin should start with a gentle Friday evening stroll along the cobblestone streets of Temple Bar to check out the best bars, clubs and restaurants and to pop into an art gallery. Fitzsimons and Ri-Ra will provide a more relaxed start to the trip than the frantic Academy club or New York-style Dame Lane.
Sixty6 is the perfect place for an impromptu meal, Gruel lives up to its name and Bleu Bistro is casual with a good line in seafood but very busy.
Saturday is a day of action with shopping and sightseeing the priorities. Grafton Street is where to find Brown Thomas, the premier department store, and several fashion boutiques, while the Powerhouse Centre has an eclectic mix of shops.
Find time for a freshly ground coffee and snack at the Bald Barista in Aungier Street or a pint of Guinness in the historic Shelbourne Hotel’s Horseshoe Bar. The “black stuff” is at its best in the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse following a tour of the St James’s Gate Brewery. Dublin Castle is an equally important attraction, even though it does not boast a moat, drawbridge or towers. Built on a medieval plan of two courtyards, its rooms and fittings are palatial.
In the evening, choose from dinner at Aqua, the splendid seafood restaurant at West Pier, the action at Solas with a rooftop bar on Wexford Street or the Cobblestone, North Quays, where traditional music is played free downstairs while the paying venue upstairs rarely books a poor band.
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Sunday morning is the best time to wander around Trinity College, before the students are awake and while bells toll for morning Mass throughout the capital. Founded in 1592, the college is a blend of classical and contemporary buildings interspersed with pleasant gardens.
Now cross the Halfpenny Bridge over the River Liffey to the broad boulevard of O’Connell Street and stand outside the Post Office to recall the uprising of 1916. Sadly, one of the street’s other famous sights, the Anna Livia fountain, named after a character in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake and fondly known as the “floozie in the Jacuzzi”, has been replaced by a monumental spire, with its own disparaging sobriquet.
At the northern end of the street, Parnell Square is home to elegant and, in some cases, decaying buildings and to the Dublin Writers Museum and a modern art gallery. As the weekend break nears its end, search the lanes west of O’Connell Street and check out Capel Street for impromptu Sunday lunchtime music sessions in traditional pubs.