AT#986 - Travel to Dublin, Ireland

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therapist Amy Moran wherever you get your podcasts. Amateur Traveler Episode 986. Today Amateur Traveler

talks about famous authors, a library, and a revolution, beer and whiskey and immigration,

pubs, music, and busking as we go to Dublin, Ireland. This is Chris Christensen from Amateur Traveler,

let's talk about Dublin. I'd like to welcome to the show Garvin Rush from DublinTourGuide.ie,

who strangely enough has come to talk to us about Dublin. We're having a welcome to the show.

Thanks very much for having me, Chris, great to be here. And what is your connection with Dublin,

other than obviously that you're a tour guide in Dublin? I'd be the big one, so I grew up in a

different part of the country. I grew up in the northwest of the country, County Dunningall,

and I went to university near Dublin, so that had me in the area. I've lived in France and

Sweden, and obviously did a good bit of traveling over the last 20 or so years as well. But Dublin

is the capital of Ireland, and it's by far the most important city, but people done in Cork might

tell you something very different. Why should someone go to Dublin? Well, Dublin and Ireland in

general, it's the type of location that if you're coming from North America or you're traveling

from any other continent, it's probably not your first destination in Europe unless you have an

Irish background, you have Irish ancestry or something like that. A lot of people go to

France and Italy, to a continental Europe, maybe stop by over to London. So it's great in that

respect because we don't get as many busloads, coachloads of tourists as other destinations.

So I feel like Ireland is a destination for those that have a deeper, longer think about where

they want to go in Europe. So I like to think that the visitors we get are a higher caliber

anyway. However, small that increases, the caliber level does go up. Now Dublin, it is the capital,

it's bigger city in Ireland, and coming to Ireland, it's quite special for anybody, even if you

don't have that Irish connection. I've heard people that are Jewish, all right, Jewish Americans,

let's say, come to Ireland and they feel a sense of being home. So it has that strange and wonderful

and magical air to it. That's Ireland in general. Dublin in particular,

so many great things I could say about Dublin, it's a compact city, it's very walkable,

pretty much all the attractions that you need to see are nearby. So you could go from one

end of the city center to the other, walking in less than 20 minutes. It's very accessible,

it's flat, it's not bustling with people like, let's say London and other, let's say tourist cities

in Italy in the middle of summer, right? So it has that sense of breathability, you're not

overwhelmed and it's got an incredible amount of charm and history when you're coming to Dublin,

you're coming to a place that's interesting on so many levels. Here's a city that was

British for over 700 years and has only been Irish officially for 100 years. So we're still in

the process in Dublin of coming to terms with that, understanding that and adapting to that,

and by that people are trying to understand Dublin as a home, Dublin was British, Dublin is Irish

but without the British parts, it's not Dublin. So you have to have the Irish parts and the British

parts to make it Dublin. And you'll see that as you walk around, you'll see the old Parliament

building, which is now the rank of Ireland building. It's right in the center, it's right beside

Trinity College, and in the pediment, which is the big triangle thing, right? The architectural

triangle thing that you'll see atop classical buildings or in this case, neoclassical buildings

within that pediment, there still remains the British code of arms, right? In the day when

that was the British part of the building in Dublin until 1800 and one. So we left it there because

we will not change history by removing a historical element. So there's that sense of respect

for history. Obviously, as Irish people, we have a couple of chips on our shoulders,

right? Because our freedom was very hard fought and hard won. Americans, they fought the British once

and they won. We tried seven or more times and when we won, it wasn't even a win, it was a draw.

So you have all of those elements and Dublin has that aspect to it. So as Irish, it's British,

it's old and it's new and it's the people as well. Ireland is still famous in regard to a very

friendly place. I'm going to start to get into the itinerary. I get the feel here. Just for those

who are listening, I ask Garvin for a paragraph for the answer to why you want to go to Dublin.

So my good feeling is you put the quarter in, you got to listen to the whole song. This gives people

an idea what it's like going to Ireland and a little bit of the crack here. Yeah, my people are

not Irish. They actually are Vikings. There were some of the first tourists in Ireland, but they

weren't the best behavior tourists. Let's just say. So what I tell you, are you going to recommend for

us, Garvin? Is it a Danish name? Yep. Yeah, because there's a few Danish kings called Cristiana

or Christian. The Danes came for a little visit. It was apparently mostly the Norwegian Vikings that

were over here. They called the Norwegian Vikings with whom they were more familiar, the fair foreigners

and when the Danish arrived, they called them the dark foreigners. Now that might be a reference to

the familiarity, unfamiliarity or the hair. People take it literally. That's funny. The hair,

but dovegall is the Irish term for dark foreigner and dovegall becomes Doyle, which is

pretty popular, a common Irish name today. I did not know that. Interesting. So basically, Doyle

is the Irish version of Christensen. So where are we going to start as we're touring Dublin?

All right. As I said, Dublin is a small city center, so you don't need to stay right behind

in the middle of the city. If you're staying in a hotel, it's generally a good

bet to stay on the south side of the river. So the river is the river Liffey and that very

conveniently divides the city into the north from the south side. It makes it quite easy for

navigating. If you get to the river, you know that the river is either going west or it's going east.

So stay on the south side of the river. Don't stay in the temple bar area, which is

smack-bind in the middle of the city and famously or infamously a very noisy, busy place. It's

got a lot of pubs in it. So you're not going to sleep that well there. And if you're not there

to sleep fine, but if you want to get a good night's sleep to stay south of that. If you're spending

what are we talking about for seven days, is that right, Chris? Yeah. Yeah. Let's say four days

in Dublin. Obviously on the first day, you want to see most of the city. Obviously, I run a private

tour company. I'm a big proponent of doing any sort of tour of the city. A lot of sites nearby,

a lot of everything's accessible. Do that get to see most of the sites, few other attractions that

you could check out on the first day or in subsequent days? Let's talk about what the sites were

that I would see, whether I'm doing on a tour or independently, what are the highlights that I'm

going to tackle on the first day? This is definitely going to be a long paragraph.

I suppose I'll give you my favorite sites in Dublin. Let's start with that. The GPO, the general post

office, it was the center or the headquarters of the rebel leaders during the 1916 Easter rising.

And this is the rebellion that led to the war of independence, which led to independence in 1922.

So that's a big deal. I like to say to people, the GPO for us is like the Boston Harbor for

the American Revolutionary War. Also a bit like the LMO because it wasn't a successful stand

in the military sense. Yeah, the rebels lost their overwhelms. The building still standing.

It's definitely saddening better than I haven't seen the Alamo, but I don't think it was much of a

left. They restored it. They restored it. With the GPO, the walls were pretty thick. The building

was built in the 18, but it was the middle of a shell of it was all that was left. So there,

there is a great museum about that fight. If you want to learn more about that, of course every

Irish person that goes to the educational system learns about that. So it has a lot of weight,

a lot of credibility to it. So I love going there. There's a great statue to an Irish mythological

hero called Cullin. And I tell a great story about that. My great grand uncle was one of the leaders

that fought and was executed for his part in the rebellion. So his name is on the proclamation.

So this is, you could say one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about Irish history and the

fight for independence. And today you ask questions like, what does that actually mean? Because

it meant a different thing in the 1920s when the struggle was real. How do we interpret that? How do

we appreciate that properly today? To remember, but also to take it in the context of not just the 1920s

but of today, 2026. That's a post office on the same street, O'Connell street. That's the main

street. So it's a wide street. It's a long street. It'd be like the Irish shows Alize.

There's Burger King and McDonald's and all the rest. It's not so fun.

This McDonald's on the show on Alize. I've actually been to there. So yeah, this is no

trouble. It's timber. All right. So you've got a great statue of Daniel O'Connell. Daniel O'Connell

is one of Ireland's greatest historical figures. You could compare him to Martin Luther King

and Gandhi in the one sentence as I've done. So he's a big deal. You can learn about him.

You've got right in the middle of the street the spire. So this was built to welcome in the new

millennium. It is a metal spire. Stay in the steel by the way, 121 meters high.

Marks the center of the city and welcomes in Dublin into the new millennium. Or rather,

it's a way for the new millennium to bring Dublin along with it. So it's quite different to

the classical and Georgian and Victorian architecture that you'd see in Dublin typically.

That's big street. Those are important monuments going south then. You're going over the O'Connell

bridge and you're looking up the river to the west and you'll be able to see the Hapenny bridge,

which is one of these icons of the city. So it's beautiful white bridge. It was one of the first

rot iron bridges in the world. Way back in 1816. Yeah, it's one of these charming icons of the city.

But going south from O'Connell bridge, you're walking towards Trinity College. So the university itself

was set up by Queen Elizabeth back in 1592. That's a beautiful university. When you come in, most

of the architecture you're looking at is from the early to mid-1700s. So it's a lot of new

classical buildings and then you go into the old library of Trinity College and it's just full of

oak vaulted ceilings, bays where there's still some books in there. They're getting ready to

refurbish it and they can't quite come to terms with the idea of closing the doors for a couple

years. So they've been delaying that again and again. And now it seems that they're

set on closing in 2027. So if you're listening to this, you're interested in going check out the

websites, check out some news because they might have moved that forward to 2037. We'll see.

Well, and have they announced what they're going to do with some of the well-known exhibits like

the Book of Kells, which a lot of people come to see the illustrated volumes. So they're going to have,

this is what we've been told, they're going to have that in a separate building.

Okay. And I guess they'll have a fraction of the displays and exhibitions that they have normally

accompanying it. So it will be visible, but just the library will be getting fixed up in the meantime.

Okay. Beautiful libraries. It's one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.

I would say top three, but hey, I haven't been to all the libraries.

It's up there. It's on my list as well. I don't know if I ever ranked that list, but yes.

Trinity College, if you leave Trinity College, then you're going to the site side and you can pass by

bookshop called Hodges Figus. And if you can spell that, you'll get a golden star. So H-O-D-G

E-S, and then separate word, Figus F-I-G-G-I-S. Hodges Figus,

it's been going since 1768. Beautiful building, amazing, and quite a large bookshop. So a typical

Dublin of things to do is to amble past the display windows and see what the new releases are.

Of course, Dublin is quite an important city for literature, because I'm not going to quiz you,

but if you know any famous authors, you could tell me. But it's a UNESCO city of literature because

of the great contribution that Dublin, in particular, Ireland in general, has made to world literature.

So you've got Brahms Stoker who wrote Samuel Beckett, who's regarded as the greatest playwright

of the 20th century. You've got Oscar Wilde, another great playwright from, I'd say the 1880s,

1890s, the opposite of Beckett, and that if you go to see Oscar Wilde play, you're going to have a

life. So you have some wine, and then there'll be a break, and then maybe you'll have some more wine,

and oh, you're having a great evening out. Beckett, have some coffee, bring your no pad, make sure

you have two pens, because you'll need to figure out what's happening. Waiting for Godot is his

most famous play, and one of the quote is that it's a play where nothing happens.

Happens, yes. Yeah, so flippa corn, Oscar Wilde or Samuel Beckett, which one you want to go see?

Anyway, huge figure is big names, and probably the biggest of them all is James Joyce,

and if you thought Beckett was inaccessible, here's another giant. So his book, the most important

book that he was called Ulysses. Ulysses, right? And it's set in Dublin in 1904. It follows Leo

Paul Bloom as he makes his way through the city. So it's a tom of a book. It's thick in more than one

way. People attempt to read it. People say they read it, but don't understand what's going on,

because it's spectacularly particular to Dublin on the 16th of June, 1904. It is regarded as the

greatest work of fiction in the English language. It is adored by university professors and

lamented and scorned and hated probably by their students until 50 years pass or so, and they're like,

ah, now I get how amazing it is. One interesting time to come to Dublin is on the 16th of June.

We call that Bloom's Day after the main character, and people dress up like it's 1904.

It's very cool. Ladies wearing the wide dresses and hats, and the gentleman, it's funny,

men's fashion hasn't changed as much. Just wear a hat. We're a suit in a hat and you might fit in.

Walking thick, that'd be nice as well. And of course there's readings, there's pilgrimages

through the city, following the book, following the chapters. It's very interesting time to come.

It's the opposite of St. Patrick's Day. Okay. In terms of the visitor clientele, right? We have

on Bloom's Day, you got professors flying over on St. Patrick's Day, you have the spring breakers

flying over, right? The students are coming over for St. Patrick's Day. Maybe now it would be a good

segue to talk about the different times of the year to come to Dublin. Yeah, that'd be great.

Great. So I guess we could start chronologically with St. Patrick's Day, because that's when

Dublin and Ireland is in the limelight on the world stage. People that haven't been to Ireland

don't realize that St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is more of a family day. You can't buy alcohol

in the shops until after the parade is over. So people come out with their families and it's

really a family affair. It's good except for there's a few bad apples, right? That you see and you're

like, okay, but most people are there for a sober, fun, joyous time. Now the parade ends,

kids go home and then you can do what you want. But that's typically what it's like. It's great to

be in Dublin and St. Patrick's Day. See the big parades, it's a special occasion for sure.

Of course you're not going to get into any of the pubs unless you're there really early or unless

you get out of the city center. But even then it's going to be the most popular time of the year

for the publicans. An interesting thing to do is obviously you can see the one in Dublin,

but you could go to some nearby commuter towns or smaller towns I cite Dublin and see

once they'd be colic because it's happening in the town, but you can see more of a local flair.

And nowadays we welcome a tremendous amount of American high school and college

bands that come over and march in the parade, which is great. Oh, interesting.

In the past, in the 1950s or 60s in Ireland, every town had its own brass band,

but through emigration, the bands slowly disintegrated. So it's good to have these American

bands coming back. It's funny. The Irish emigrate to the US and then for a small

short time, we bring these bands back just to bump up the St. Patrick's Day parades.

Oh, important. We don't color the beer dream. That's the ludicrous thing to do.

And oh, very even more important. The Shamrock, the national symbol of Ireland,

along with the harp. Technically the harp is the official one, but the Shamrock

is three leaves, not four. So if you're ever in Texas and somebody, happy St. Patrick's Day,

and it's sent patties with a D with two D's, not with two T's. I've seen this as well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, or if you're not sure, just some Patrick's Day and the Shamrock

with the three leaves, not the four leaves. That's wrong. Yes. Okay. So in the past, that

day of trying to, especially wrong on St. Patrick's Day, who at least in story, if not in reality,

used the Shamrock as a way of explaining the Trinity to the Irish people. So a four-leaf

Clover would not work as well. Contextual. It would work. No. I don't even know what the four

version of Trilogy is. A quadrilogy, is that it? Probably, but that's, it takes too long to say.

So then you've got Bloomsday or Summer in general, and that's obviously a great time to come.

Ireland doesn't get too hot. So typically it won't go higher than 85 degrees as the highest it

goes, and it's typically 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. So you're talking 18 to 23 degrees. It's

perfect. And it doesn't really get tremendously cold either. April is a great time to come. It's

one of the driest months of the year, which surprises people, because you think of April showers.

And that's pretty important if you're going off to the west of Ireland, which is quite rainy.

So it's twice as rainy as Dublin, and you might think, oh, that must be incredibly rainy,

because Dublin is very wet, right? Dublin gets less precipitation than New York.

Huh, I did not know that. Nobody thinks of New York as being spectacularly rainy, yeah.

So think of that. Dublin is nice and dry as the driest part of the country.

And then let's fast forward to Halloween. So Halloween was invented in Ireland. Halloween is

originally sauan, the Irish word. And sauan was Celtic New Year. So the harvest had finished.

You're walking up everything, so to speak, for the winter. Who knows?

Twitter, you might die, right? So there's a celebration, a big celebration of the year.

And people let bonfires, which is something we still do today in Ireland. And

people would drive cattle between the bonfires to purify them and save them from the coming winter.

And of course, from all of the demons, because this was the time of the year when the door to

the other world was opened. And you would get all of these. We call them fairies. Now,

typically today, the word fairy is tinkerbell. That's what people think when they think of fairy, but

in Ireland, it's much broader term. You have all these different creatures. Some of them are

mischievous, but neutral, like leprechaun, right? That's the most famous one. You're like, oh, leprechaun,

the leprechaun will take his revenge on you, because you're literally trying to steal his goals.

Who's the bad guy in this interaction? So the leprechaun is in the middle. Then you have good

fairies like the banshee, who actually screams in the middle of the night to let you know that

one of your family members is going to die soon. So, okay, I didn't think of that as a good guy,

but all right. Yeah. You think, oh, God, they're not causing it. They're the ambulance, basically.

They're not causing the accident. They're telling you, they're the ambulance before the accident

happens, which is that would be ideal, really. So they affect apparently certain families in

Ireland are known to be blessed with a banshee. And what that allows you to do is obviously if you

have a sick uncle or father or grandfather or whatever age you are, that tells you, okay,

you better go see him. He lives down the country. It doesn't matter. Go and see him because he might

already have a day left. That's useful. I would find that useful. And then on the other side,

you have malevolent fairies like the doulahan or the headless horseman. Sleepy Hollow,

that movie, the headless horseman, that's an Irish fairy originally. Okay. Right.

Anyway, so the only one that kind of got on the cereal boxes, so to speak in America was the

leprechaun, but there's several of the fairies and some of them are malevolent. So if you're going

out at night at Saoan, at Halloween, you don't want to see these guys and you don't want to be

seen more importantly by these malevolent fairies. So what you do is you dress up, right?

You dress up like one of these demons. And I like to joke with the doulahan cesian. He's

raced towards you on his horse and is, oh, no. That's, no, that's Frank. Yeah, that's Frank. He's

probably going off to annoy somebody. They think that you're one of their own. You have in

Ireland, you can celebrate Saoan or Halloween. Oh, throughout the country, there's sacred sites,

ancient pagan sites that you can go to. And then there's the modern equivalent, the capital of

Halloween in Ireland today is dairy. So dairy city up in Northern Ireland. I went there for Halloween

this year. That was great. So they have a parade, a Halloween parade followed by a fireworks

display. It's fantastic. We don't really do fireworks at New Year's Eve. We save them for

Halloween. Some people, you'll be setting them off throughout September, which is weird if you

know that Halloween is the end of October. Yeah. All right. So that's Ireland. In terms of

the weather, don't worry much about the weather unless you go into the west. In that case,

you're just flipping the coin. And as we say in Ireland, people don't come to Ireland for the weather.

Well, you're not going on a sun vacation. You're not lasing around the beach. You're going off

exploring all the history and culture and heritage that there is here. It's a small place

by American standards. The Republic of Ireland is the size of West Virginia. Yeah.

But it's dense. So anywhere you're traveling in Ireland, there's a lot to see. So if you're staying

in Dublin, you're going to be in Dublin for preferably two or three nights and then you'd

probably head off to see the rest of the country. If you're using Dublin as a base, that can work,

but you're talking about long days. So if you were going to Dublin over to the Cliffs of Moher,

which are these famous spectacular Cliffs on the west of the island. A lot of people go there and

take that 13-hour day to drive over there, see the Cliffs, go to Galway, and then come back again

in the same day. And you're just overly tired. You're pretty much hung over the next day

in terms of your energy. So I'm going to pull you back to Dublin because we actually have

another show about the Cliffs of Moher. In terms of that finishing up the first day or what you

would do the second day in Dublin. Yeah. So on your first day, see most of the city. If you're

flying in that day from North America on a red eye, probably don't want to pack in too much on

that first day. Three hour walk in tours, what we do with a break halfway through for coffee,

we have five hour tours as well. It's more comprehensive. That's a good jet-lined breaker

because you don't know what to do. I would think it's also because you have trouble

fitting everything into a three hour tour. It would be my guess here. For sure, yeah.

So after that, then on your first day, if you do want to go to Guinness, the Guinness Storehouse,

that's the day to do it because you're a bit tired and Guinness, you do that at the end of the day.

That's a five o'clock or four o'clock or three o'clock even. In the summer, they're opened a bit

later. You could even go at seven o'clock in the summer months. And it's got the aculate of

the best tourist attraction in the world. So you can look that up. It won that award. So it says a

lot about what the experience is like. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. For me and a lot of locals,

the best thing is getting the Guinness and standing on the top floor and looking out and you

have this great 360 view of the whole city. And that's particularly impressive because Dublin is

a very low-lying city. There's little skyscrapers. So you can see all the churches and everything

else, right? It's a great end to the visit of the Guinness Storehouse. And I have been there,

but I'm not sure that everyone can picture what you're talking about. But it's a five-story building,

I want to say more museum and bar at this point than factory.

Oh, yeah. You won't see any of the beer being made. You'll walk through the experience. You go

up each floor. I think the gravity bar might even be the seventh floor. Okay. It's been a

few years since I was there. Yeah. But yeah, there's a lot of it. And most buildings in Dublin

are four to five stories high. Yep. And they're normal stories, whereas this is a big building.

There's Guinness. There's also Jamison. These are the two big attractions that a lot of people

want to go and see. And that's fine. They're good attractions. The downsides are Guinness. You

can't see the beer being made. You can see some other breweries in Dublin, craft breweries where

you actually get that experience. And likewise with Jamison, in Dublin, they don't make the whiskey

there anymore. It's made down in Middleton County, Cork. So if you're looking to see a work in

distillery, there's Teeling, which is T-E-E-L-I-N-G, and it is a working distillery in Dublin city.

In the same kind of area, in the Liberty's area, which is the old industrial brewing and

distilling part of the city. And it's experiencing a resurgence over the last 20 years,

more and more of these smaller distilleries and breweries are popping back up, which is great.

So in terms of your options there, I think a lot of people on an itinerary of Dublin will include

some drinking, or at least a visit to an alcoholic institution, even if they don't drink. So

you've got the beer and Guinness, the whiskey in Jamison, you go to Teeling instead. I'm not going

to list all the distilleries here, but there is an interesting one called Pierce Lions. So that's P-E-A-R-S-E,

and then separate word lions, L-Y-O-N-S. And it is actually built inside a church, an old church.

So that's quite unusual. I find that quite memorable. The tour guide will not just give you a tour

of the distillery, but also of the graveyard, and pick and mix a few interesting stories of some of

the people buried there since the early 1700s. We're talking about alcohol while we bring that up.

And you mentioned the temple bar area, which is a very touristy area.

Wouldn't necessarily be where I would go if I wanted to listen to some traditional Irish music.

Where would you send me? The temple bar. I'll give you the pros and the cons, right?

It's right in the center. It's convenient. It's got original narrow streets. It's got

cobbled streets with heads to the charm. A lot of the pubs are nearly all the pubs are

men for tourists. So the design that way, what that means is that you won't really find any locals

in them. But because they're men for tourists, what a tourist want, they want traditional Irish music.

So you can actually get some pretty good Irish music in the temple bar area. Just walk down the

main street with your ears pricked and pop into a pub that sounds good. And most of the pubs

will be playing live music from, let's say, 2 p.m. onwards, if not earlier, during the summer.

So that's a good thing to do. In fact, at the end of January every year, there's the temple bar

Trad Festival. Trad is short for traditional Irish music. That's a great opportunity for locals

and even international music enthusiasts to come to the area and sample some of the greatest

musicians in contemporary Irish traditional music. I could say that. A few other pubs outside

that area. Generally, the rule, if you're coming to Dublin and you want to go to a pub, stay away

from temple bar and you'll get a good pub. You'll get a local pub, you'll get some opals,

you got some good gitties, and you'll get authenticity. Because one or two, not all the pubs,

well, one or two of the pubs in temple bar are claiming to be very old and are not that old.

So if they're saying traditional Irish pub and red neon, it's an oxymoron, isn't it?

pubs that you could get proper Trad in include the cobblestone. So the cobblestone

in the Smithfield area, Smithfield is a great up and coming area. It's got a lot of cool cafes,

interesting places for brunch. It's a hipster sort of place, but it still got that grit from

the 1980s. But it's a lovely place to walk around. The cobblestone was regarded as...

That's actually by the Tramison distillery. It's nearby, yeah. But the cobblestone was regarded as

a hidden gem in Trad music, but everybody knows about it now. It has known for really the last 10

years. So it's great to come and listen to the music, but you won't be able to see many musicians

because there's too many people in there. So I love the cobblestone. I just wish they put the

musicians in a different part of the pub. So more people could see them and hear them. So my

alternative would be Piper's Corner. Piper's Corner, on the other end of town, it's east of

O'Connell Street, and they host Trad Sessions, more of a local crowd there, and far easier to see

and hear the musicians playing. Excellent. What other sites would you recommend that we

can't leave Dublin until we've seen what? So I won't mention monuments, but I'll talk specifically

about attractions like visitor centers, so to speak. Okay. So there is The Old Library of

Trinity College that contains the Book of Kells. You mentioned that. The Nash Museum of Archaeology

and History. Okay. That is amazing. That's probably the best attraction in Dublin in terms of

the value. Interesting. That's within it. So it has objects that go back in 9,000 years,

which is difficult to comprehend. It has the bog bodies, which you heard about these?

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So they're very well preserved in the peat in the bog, and they were discovered

in 2003, and they're over 2000 years old, but the hair, the stomach contents, skin, everything

still intact and visible there. The stomach contents are not visible, thankfully. So you've got

that. You've got the Epic Museum. So I love this. This is an attraction that's less than 10 years old.

It's the Irish Amigration Museum. So it has the word museum, but it's not your traditional

dusty one like the National Museum. It's newer. There's a lot of screens. It's very engaging.

Easy to spend two hours there, and it tells the story of how so many Irish people left Ireland,

and then went to not just to America or Britain, but all around the world and talking about the

descendants of Irish people. Obviously, you're talking about JFK, but you're also talking about

over a dozen US presidents, talking about Charles DeGal from France, had Irish ancestry, the

forefather of Chilean independence, Bernardo O'Higgins, Irish background. The man who created the

Argentinian navy was also an Irish background. So there's all these amazing stories. So that's

a great one. I would heavily recommend these four things that I'm telling you about. The museum,

the difficulty level is 5 out of 5. The epic museum difficulty level probably 3 out of 5.

The next one I'm going to tell you about is Kilmainum Jail. So if you try to spell that,

you'll have some difficulty, but just type in Dublin and then type in G-A-O-L. And that'll get you

Kilmainham Jail. That is a jail from 1796 or thereabouts, and it's amazing. So it's where so many

of the great rebels and Irish figures had been imprisoned over the years. If you go there,

you'll hear about like the, it's like going to somewhere in America where, oh, this is where

Martin Luther and Abraham Lincoln and George Washington were all interred at the very time. So

it has nearly the whole pantheon of important Irish figures and interred there. And it's where,

most importantly, one of the leaders of the 1916 rebellion were executed. Right. Way back in 1916.

It's a brilliant place. The guides are fantastic. It's high in demand. So if you're going there,

you do need to book online and you should do that a month in advance. You need to check that out.

They do release tickets at about, what is it, 9.15 or 9.30 in the morning? So it's a tad early

for more I live, but yeah, you're in Ireland and you want to get them online at that stage. So

those are my four great attractions in Dublin. Obviously, you could see the two cathedrals,

Christchurch Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral. I think they're both fantastic, but you need to

understand the context before you go there. I think a lot of people will go to St. Patrick's Cathedral

because they think St. Patrick, Ireland, the Irish or Catholic, the Cathedral must be Catholic.

Right. But it's not. Right. And it hasn't been Catholic for 500 years.

So it is the National Cathedral, even today in Ireland, which at least up until the 90s

was a very Catholic country. It falls in very important to us historically, but St. Patrick's

Cathedral is a Protestant Cathedral. So if you go in there, you're going to get a great glimpse

into what Dublin was like before Irish independence. So this is showing you the British heritage

of Dublin. And it's quite unusual for Irish people to go in there to visit and see, wow,

there's British flags in here for British army regiments. And there's monuments to the wars

in China and Burma. So at the first time I went in there, I was quite shocked at that. You don't

see that in Catholic churches in Ireland. Of course, besides that, it's a fascinating cathedral

in general. You see an old monument of St. Patrick in there, some ancient graves labs.

It's just chuck a block full of things. So I'd recommend going to it. But as long as you understand

that context, you'll understand the Cathedral. Of course, Dublin has a lot of great green areas.

So if you want to take a break, St. Stephen's Green is probably the most beloved part of the city

for Dubliners. And in summer, of course, there's events in St. Stephen's Green are more likely

Marion Square. So that's M-E or I-O-N. They'll have events in there throughout the summer and

particular. And one of the best streets to visit is Grafton Street. And by that, I mean, it's mostly

for Dubliners in terms of shopping. So you're not going there for the shopping unless you need to

get something real quick in Lululemon, but you're going there for buskers. Going there for

the street performers, which are mostly musicians. And it's great to walk up into the street and see

some fella playing a classical guitar. Some of the fella playing some Japanese instrument that

I don't know how it works, but it's interesting and I like the diversity. And then you get somebody

with a acoustic guitar, of course, playing something that you've heard seven million times on

the radio already. And then you get someone playing their own song. So it's good to have the mix.

And every Christmas, there's a charity event set up called The Big Busk on Grafton. And it involves

artists like Bono and Hozier, who went and answered, playing on the street and just to raise

body for charity. Imagine them there on the same level as you. No stage, minimal security.

It's a great experience. So that's Grafton Street has that old air where you would have seen

these buskers throughout every street in Dublin back in the day, but Grafton Street is kind of

the last holdout. Now, you want to run Grafton Street. As I said, there's going to be a lot of

brand shops that you've seen before. But go west of Grafton Street. Go and get lost for a few

blocks because that's where you've got the smaller boutique shops. And that's where you'll see some

kind of quality locally made or at least locally owned shops. Okay. So I think that works quite well.

Excellent. It seems like you've wrapped up what you would do in Dublin. Are there one or two

side trips that you would add if I was going to extend my four days in Dublin to seven days?

You've got the city center, as you mentioned there. If you want to take nice little day trips

from there, both H-O-W-T-H is this peninsula to the northeast of the city center by 40 medits

on the bus or train. And it's a lovely seaside time. So it's great to go there and go to the summit

of the peninsula and walk down along the coast. Great way to get some fresh air, just escape the city,

feel a bit of space, and then have an Irish coffee in the Abbey Tavern or go have some great seafood.

Probably the best place in the area, including Dublin City, for seafood is Hoth.

Okay. And if you're a really adventurous, you could go to Lambay Island, which has wild

wallabies. Wallabies, this is Australia. I'm sorry. And they're in this island off the coast of Dublin.

Yeah. Lambay, L-A-M-B-A-Y. There's also a distillery there. Lambay, distillery, pretty good, if you like

your whiskey. But that's something unusual. So obviously, first time visitors, you probably just

want to do the usual stuff, hit the main attractions, check out Hoth in general, and then going south

from Dublin, County Wicklow is the next county. And that's a great one if you only have a whistle stop

tour in Dublin. If you're only there for a little while, go to Wicklow because that will show you

Ireland in miniature in a lot of ways. It's like known as the Garden of Ireland. It's got a

national park. There's mountains. There's a lot of greenery in forests. So it's a beautiful

place to see the famous 40 shades of green. That's people talk about. It's a wonderful

monastic ruin called Glen Da Loth. That's one word. So I'm not going to spell it, but it just

happened monastic ruin south of Dublin and you'll find it. And we have a great episode of

anybody's interested in following up on that 884 Dublin to Cork Road Trip in Southeastern Ireland

that goes through Glen Da Loth and County Wicklow and Waterford and Wexford and such. So I'll send

people over that way. Excellent. I think we're starting to wrap this up. Anything else people

really need to know before they get on a plane and head to Dublin? Obviously, dress with the weather.

The temperature ranges are quite narrow. So it's not going to be too hot and not going to be too cold.

It might rain a little bit, but it doesn't rain a lot when it rains. So it rains a little bit stops

and then it's dry again. That's the type of where they expect at least in Dublin. And in terms of

let's say interesting places to eat, I'm not going to mention a lot of them, but Ireland is

famous for green grass, which means we have great cows or at least happy cows and the milk,

the butter is famous. And thankfully, recently, like in the last 20 years, let's say, we have some

good ice cream companies is Murphy's. So Murphy's from Western Ireland. That's right. Yeah, it's from

Dingo. So maybe it was covered in the show, except you went to Cork, you didn't go all the way to

Kerry. No, I've got we've covered in a different show on Dingo. So they have a parlor in Dublin

city. So I'd say making a quest to try to visit as many of these as possible. Great ice cream made

with the milk from an Irish breed of corn, which is great rare nominees. So Murphy's ice cream.

And I would recommend their Irish brown bread ice cream. Yeah. And also the sea salt would be the

my two favorites. Three samples start with the sea salt, then brown bread, and then I always go

with the gin, then I haven't had that one. That's quite interesting. And then another one is

Butler's chocolate cafe. So that's an Irish chain. And they do a fantastic dark hot chocolate.

It's the best hot chocolate I've ever had, dark hot chocolate at Butler's. Yeah, you'll

feel satisfied as you're halfway through it. Excellent. As we go to wrap this up, we've got a

couple standard wrap up questions. One is you're standing in the prettiest spot in Dublin.

Where are you standing and what are you looking at? That's a tough one. Now it might be if it's William

Square. Interesting. Okay. Because they have, so a square, it's got a park that's actually

still private. It's the last private park in Dublin. And a lot of the buildings are from nearly

all of them are from the 1790s, and they're pretty well preserved. And if you could remove the cars,

it almost would bring you back in time. Oh, the interesting.

And you're right down there by the canal, where my daughter and son-in-law got engaged. So I

have a fondness for that part of the city. Where along the canal, though? Right about a block

from there or two blocks from there. I was there. You don't remember a particular part of the canal?

Oh, it's about right by, I would say, a cross from the Mirisville hotel, if I had to guess.

Yeah, that's a lovely place as well, because it's a great walk to work if you're walking along

the canal there. Yeah. There's always some ducks and herons around there. Yeah, but for me,

I think just Dublin-specific, what it's famous for is that architecture from the 1700s,

that red brick buildings, townhouses from that period. That's quintessentially old Dublin. Yeah,

excellent. She's that one. One thing that makes you laugh and say only in Dublin.

I don't know if this is Dublin-specific, but it needs to be an anecdote, right? So I'm there

on my bike, and I'm coming towards O'Connell Street, and I'm cycling along, and there's another

cyclist beside me, and I said, blade and taxi drivers think they're on the route, and then he

swirves without looking or indicating all over the road, and I'm like, at least the taxi drivers know

how to use the road. So I guess, it's funny, people, I think everywhere in the world, people are

convicted by the cyclists and the taxi drivers, but it's just the accent, right? Blaying

us, they think they're on the road. Excellent. And if you had to summarize Dublin in three words,

what three words would you pick? Go, it's interesting to see an Irishman

loss for words. So three words to describe Dublin. Yep. I'd go with tone. Okay. Because of

the cohesion of the city and the feeling of it, like Irish people are not really used to

living in cities. Cities are, for the most part, a foreign introduction to Ireland. So people

like the sense of familiarity and closeness and smallness, and that's why we call it tone,

rather than a city. So tone would be one, and I suppose, gritty would be another. Okay.

And the third one would probably be real, as inauthentic, right? So there's not that much

pretentiousness in Dublin, at least. Dubliners take people down a notch if they have that sort of

attitude. Excellent. Excellent. So I suppose I could leave you with one last thing in that respect.

People make jokes about Bono from you too. Sure. And they say things like what's the difference

between God and Bono. God doesn't walk through the streets of Dublin pretending to be Bono.

And there'd be graffiti. Bono has a big head and things like that. No, I don't believe with them,

I like Bono, but these are what like Dubliners say, just because he's successful, right? And people

want to take successful people down a notch. So it has that element that makes it real and takes

away the pretentiousness. Excellent. Our guest again has been Garvin Rush from DublinTourGuide.ie,

and I will put a link to that in the show notes, of course. And if you haven't gotten enough

Garvin, I think you could easily get more by booking him as a tour guide on your next trip to Dublin.

Anything you would say about that, Garvin, before we wrap it up here?

Yeah, thanks, Chris. Yeah, obviously check out the website. We've got the site scene tours,

we've got themed tours like pub tour, or if you want to do the opposite of that, a museum's tour.

If you can't decide, we've got a combo tour, it's called the sites and pints.

So a four tour that's half site scene tour and half pub tour, we also offer driving tours outside

of the city as well. But the main focus is on doing a private, typically we have two to four people,

because I like to have a conversation, and I like to connect with people. And you can't really do

that in an hour. Yep, excellent. Thanks again for coming on amateur traveler, and sharing what

is your obvious love for Dublin. Thanks very much, Chris.

A special thanks to the patrons of the show who help support amateur traveler. If you're interested

in learning more about what you get by becoming a patron in the show, early access to episodes,

no ads, and a monthly Zoom call, go to patreon.com slash amateur traveler.

I'm heading out to Central America here too, but the good news is my understanding is we have

enough people that the trip to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan is going to happen. If you're

interested in joining us, there's still some room. I hope you can make it. We're going to have a

great time for more information. Drop me an email or go to amateur traveler dot com slash trips.

With that, we're going to end this episode of amateur traveler. If you have any questions,

send an email to chris2xedgmail.com or better yet. Leave a comment on this episode at amateurtraveler.com.

And as always, thanks so much for listening.