Dublin: Gaelic & Guinness

As someone who lives in the UK; it does feel a little bit odd visiting Ireland for a few reasons. Due to the fact Ireland is a country in its own right, and completely separate from the UK, there are a few quirks that haven’t been carried over to our country. You get a few hints that you’re not in the UK as soon as you get off the plane, the signs are in English and Irish, as they’re both the official languages of the country.

Another thing is they drive on the left, like us, but things such as the road signs, traffic lights and number plates are different; which feels very wrong.

But as you walk around the City Centre of Dublin, you see quite a few similarities to a British City, all of the shops are pretty much the same. Interestingly, they’ve got a few shops that have gone for a different name over there;

• Ed’s Diner – Called ‘Eddie Rockets’
• Poundland – Called Euromarket – makes sense really, as they use Euros
• Pizza Express – Called ‘Milano’ – maybe they’re just not as keen to get going as us
• Primark – Called ‘Penney’s’ over there – don’t ask

Don’t expect to get anywhere quickly in Dublin

Although the City Centre of Dublin is relatively compact; there doesn’t seem to be anyone in any kind of hurry in the city. Admittedly, we were there for a weekend, and caught up in the melee of tourist traffic. However, it was still insane how many people cut in front of you very slowly, making walking rather frustrating.

The public transport wasn’t that much quicker either; most of Dublin is being dug up at the moment to make way for the Luas tramway expansion. When finished, it will be able to take you everywhere, but for now, no one can get anywhere.

One of the main streets going from 6 lanes into 2 due to roadworks, which a rather angsty and sarcastic bus driver explained to us;

“6 doesn’t go into 2 very well, but no one seems to have told Dublin City Council that yet.”

As we were on holiday, we weren’t in a rush to get around, so it wasn’t worth getting annoyed about.

Dublin has some pretty cool landmarks and things to do, here are a few that are worth noting down if you’re planning on visiting;

Places to Visit in Dublin

• O’Connell Street – This is one of the main streets in the City Centre, and has a line of statues and sculptures running up the middle, one of them being a gigantic point (known to locals as ‘the pointless point’), it’s 121 metres high, and is said to be the tallest sculpture in the world.
• Guinness Storehouse – Even if you’re like me, and you’re not particularly a fan of Guinness, I’d totally recommend a trip here anyway. It’s a really great experience, and your ticket entitles you to a free Guinness at the top of the factory, with a 360° view of Dublin.
• Temple Bar – This is the cultural area of Dublin, and has a plethora of traditional Irish pubs, each one packed to the rafters after 9pm, and playing upbeat Irish music.
• Phoenix Park – Officially the largest park in Europe, which is a refreshing place to visit after you’ve been in the depths of the city for a few days.
• Dublin Bus Tour (the green one!) – There are 3 different bus tours that offer to take you round the city. We took ‘the green one’ and turned out to be the right decision; the bus driver was funny and knowledgeable. As he said to people at bus stops waiting for the other red tour bus; “Green is good, Red is.. different’.