Dublin’s best-known tourist site may be the 250-year-old Guinness Brewery. But like most tourist attractions, the brewery is, well, a bit touristy. Plus, it does little to offer a sense of the real character of a city that’s swimming with young, creative international types. On your next trip, skip the brewery and follow the DailyXY agenda.
Share: Gather a crowd for Mediterranean-style tapas at Market Bar (above), set in an airy converted sausage factory. Share plates of cured meats, chicken and chorizo skewers and ocean-fresh mussels besides a soaring wall of wooden shoe lasts. 16a Fade St.
Nurse: You won’t be the only hungover dude at The Bar with No Name, where the door is marked only with a painted snail. Homemade potato leek sausage and fresh croissants will draw you in. Live music on the patio and flawless Bloody Marys might keep you for a while. On Fade St., across from Market Bar.
Sip: There’s nothing trendy about The Long Hall, among the last of the authentic “old man pubs,” where no music is played and the Guinness is poured very slowly. Some say it’s home to the best pint of Guinness in town. 31 South Great George’s St.
Dance: Though Whelan’s has hosted Bloc Party and the Arctic Monkeys, the intimate, wood-paneled two-storey venue gets just as raucous with local favourites or European up-and-comers swinging through town. 25 Wexford St.
Sleep: Located in 350-year-old Georgian townhouses, the Merrion Hotel – probably the best hotel in Ireland – is home to two straight-outta-Buckingham-Palace period gardens and one of the country’s most important collections of Irish art. Spring for the Junior Suite and imagine, for a night, that you are a king. 21 Upper Merrion St.
Image courtesy of El Floz.
