The Dublin Pass offers FREE ENTRY to 27 of Dublin’s top visitor attractions, free transport from the airport to the city and access to over 25 special offers and discounts in shops, restaurants and much more!

FREE ENTRY to 27 of Dublin’s top visitor attractions

There are 27 attractions available on your Dublin Pass, so the more you see, the more you save! Dublin is a delight to explore and very easy to navigate on foot, many visitor attractions are within easy walking distance of each other.

FREE Dublin Airport arrival transfer

Travel free of charge from Dublin Airport to Dublin City only. Simply validate your Pass at the Aircoach stop outside Dublin Airport and jump on an Aircoach right into the city centre. Use of this service activates your Dublin Pass. Once activated it is valid for the number of days indicated on the pass.

FREE 86-page Dublin Colour Guidebook

Receive a comprehensive Dublin guidebook including attractions, general information, interesting facts about Dublin and full colour city and regional maps. With clear, concise information and easy-to-follow directions, this guide has all the essential tips for a top Dublin experience!

Jump the queue!

The Dublin Pass entitles you to the benefit of fast-track entry, allowing you to skip the long queues at some of the busiest tourist attractions! Simply show your Dublin Pass to the attendant and you can bypass the queue, saving you time, adding convenience and making you feel like a VIP!

Special offers

Save even more money with the Dublin Pass and avail yourself of more fabulous special offers in some of Dublin’s finest shops, restaurants, theatres, entertainment venues, tours and much more!

Why not book your Dublin Pass with Viator?

1) Dublin was originally called Dubh Linn meaning Black Lake. The lake to which the name referred is the oldest known natural treacle lake in Northern Europe and currently forms the centrepiece of the penguin enclosure in Dublin Zoo.

2) Dublin’s oldest traffic light is situated beside the Renault garage in Clontarf. The light, which is still in full working order, was installed in 1893 outside the home of Fergus Mitchell who was the owner of the first car in Ireland.

3) Dublin Corporation planted 43,765 deciduous trees in the Greater Dublin area in 1998.

4) Dublin’s oldest workhouse closed its doors for a final time in July 1969. Based in Smithfield, the premises housed 10,037 orphan children during the one hundred and seventy years it operated.

5) Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge was originally made of rope and could only carry one man and a donkey at a time. It was replaced with a wooden structure in 1801. The current concrete bridge was built in 1863.

6) There are over 10,000 prostitutes operating in the Dublin area on any given night. Most are women from Galway and Cork who were forced to flee the family farm in their home county.

7) The average Dubliner earns £33,000 per annum.

None of the so-called Dublin Mountains are tall enough to meet the official criteria required to claim mountain status. The Sugarloaf is the tallest ‘Dublin Mountain’ yet measures a mere 1,389 feet above sea level.

9) The headquarters of the national broadcaster RTE in Montrose was originally built for use as an abattoir.

10) There are 2.5 million men, 1 million women and 0.5 million children currently residing in Dublin and its suburbs.

11) The Temple Bar area is so called because it housed the first Jewish temple built in Ireland. The word ‘bar’ refers to the refusal of Catholics to allow the Jewish to enter any of the adjoining commercial premises.

12) The average age of a Dublin male is 33 whilst females average 28 years of age.

13) Dublin is the IT Call Centre capital of Europe with over 850,000 people employed in the industry.

14) In 1761 a family of itinerants from Navan were refused entry to Dublin. The family settled on the outskirts of the city and created the town of Rush. Almost two hundred and fifty years later the entire population of Rush can still trace their roots back to this one family.

15) Ireland’s longest running Internet publication www.bowsie.com was established in Dublin in 1994.

16) Dubliners drink a total of 9,800 pints an hour between the hours of 5.30pm on a Friday and 3.00am the following Monday.

17) Women from Dublin are the least likely to become pregnant through casual sex. Women from Meath are the most likely.

18) Dublin is Europe’s most popular destination with travelling stag and hen parties. There is an estimated six hundred ‘pre-wedding sessions’ every weekend in the capital.

19) One in fourteen Dublin women will consent to casual sex with a foreign stranger after meeting him in a public bar.

20) One in two Dublin men will consent to casual sex with a foreign stranger after meeting her in a public bar.

21) The average 25-year-old Dubliner still lives with his/her parents, preferring to spend their money on fast cars and clothes rather than a mortgage.

22) Dublin vets charge up to fifteen times more for animal health services than their counterparts outside the capital.

23) Two radio stations attract over 90% of all listeners in the Dublin area.

24) Dubliners have a one in six chance of being targeted by a pickpocket whilst in the City Centre.

25) The average Dublin smoker will light up fifteen times a day.

26) Dublin boasts more homosexuals per capita than San Francisco.

27) The converted Ford Transit used for the Pope’s visit in 1976 was upholstered using the most expensive carpet ever made in Dublin. The carpet was a silk and Teflon weave and rumoured to have cost over £950.00 per square metre.

28) The Burke Brothers were Dublin’s 1960s’ equivalent of the Kray twins. They weren’t actually brothers but second cousins.

29) The largest cake ever baked in Dublin weighed a whopping 190lb and was made to celebrate the 1988 city millennium. The cake stood untouched in the Mansion House until 1991 when it was thrown out.

30) A pint of Guinness in Dublin can cost as much as £2.75 or as little as £2.10 depending on where you drink.

31) Dubliners are more likely to buy a stranger a drink than locals from any other area of the country are.

32) Dubliners are the least racist people in Ireland except when it comes to the people of Kerry.

33) The average visitor under the age of thirty will have sex with three different Dubliners during a week long visit.

35) The statue in Dublin’s O’Connell Street is commonly known as the ‘Whore in the Sewer’ while the one at the bottom of Grafton Street is best known as the ‘Tart with the Cart’.
[Don't ask what happened to no.34, I'm as mystified as you are. The Ed]

PS – this originally came from www.bowsie.com, now sadly defunct.

5. Davy Byrne’s

Go on a Saturday afternoon and spend all afternoon there. They show the latest scores on Ceefax during the football season. Mentioned in Ulysses, though you’d never know it from the modern décor. Attracts an amazing crowd – locals, tourists, mad old people. Just off Grafton Street. Good, high-quality food and great staff. A good pub for meeting and chatting with eccentrics.

4. McDaid’s

Simply wonderful. Former haunt of Brendan Behan and Paddy Kavanagh, among other literary giants, and again just off Grafton Street so an ideal place to seek solace after spending too much. There is an excellent upstairs room here which is ideal for parties, book launches and leaving dos, but it will be impossible to stop people drifting down to the intimate main bar. Gets packed at weekends, but on week-nights, and especially in the daytime, this is an excellent place to hang out. And the literary connections make you feel like you’re doing something cultural. Good toasted sandwiches. Nip across the road to the heavy metal disco, downstairs in Bruxelles, if you dare.

3. The Palace

Described in The Observer in 1998 as “an almost perfect pub”. Has a snug. Serves what must be among the top 3 pints of Guinness in town. Part of Temple Bar but the drunks do not seem to get there. A journalists’ hang out. It is usually quite empty at lunchtime. Does a good line in soup and sandwiches. If this was not Dublin, this would easily be the best pub in town.

2. Mulligans

Maybe it is the fact that they serve what is unquestionably the best pint of Guinness you will get anywhere in the world. Maybe it is the friendliness and professionalism of the staff. Maybe it is the big tables in the back room, where you will not be able to help chatting away to some new friends. Maybe it is all these things. Mulligans is special. Smoky atmosphere, perhaps not surprisingly given the number of journalists who have made this their local. No trip to Dublin is complete without a night spent in Mulligans.

1. The Porterhouse

A brew pub. The beer on offer – from the session beer Porterhouse Red to the 7% BrainBlasta, to the hundreds of bottled beers from around the world, is second to none. The lunch and evening menus are first class, including a brilliant Irish Stew, and excellent hot beef sandwiches. There is live music most nights. And you can usually get a seat. The service, at the tables, is perfect. And – thank the lord – they are opening a sister-pub in Covent Garden this year. This is the best place to be, night or day. It stays open until 2.00am as well. It wins awards worldwide for its beer, and keeps the indie flag flying high, against the corporate might of Guinness, who would stamp out this kind of place if they could. For the beer, the food, the décor, the atmosphere, the clientèle – I salute you, The Porterhouse. You’re the best.

Apologies to the following pubs which deserve a mention but just failed to make the top 10 – Stag’s Head, Long Stone, Dawson Lounge, Bleeding Horse, Norseman, Grogan’s, Oval, Flowing Tide (especially The Neptune Bar, with the priest), Magowans, Mahaffeys, O’Neill’s (not the chain), and even Pravda.

Update sent in by Jeanette Laracy (June 2002):

The Mean Fiddler became the Club Mono some time ago.

Update sent in by Kieron O’Reilly (January 2002):

Irish Pub closing times are now as follows:

Mon – Wed: 11.30
Thu – Sat: 12.30
Sunday: 11.00
Late night bars open ’til 1.30-ish

Update sent in by Lisa Tierney:

There are plenty of pubs in the city centre that have seating outside such as:
The Odeon (off Harcourt Street)
The Bailey (off Grafton Street)
The Quays in Temple Bar has a small courtyard out the back.
The Temple Bar Pub in Temple Bar has a section that has no roof so it’s kind of outdoors.
Bruxelles also has seating outside on the street in summer.
Davey Byrnes is another.

Choosing a top 10 in this city of cracking pubs was never going to be easy. Dublin – again unlike Britain – has yet to succumb to the temptations of fruit machines, piped music, and pool tables in its pubs. People go to pubs to drink and talk – in that order. The pubs of Temple Bar, and the worrying new trendy pubs such as Knightsbridge and Zanzibar are heaving from Friday night to Sunday night with the “Barnsley brigade” – English stag and hen parties baring their hairy arseholes – but the real quality Dublin pubs in my opinion are best appreciated in the daytime. There are few pleasures equal to pushing back those double doors, smelling the Guinness, ordering a pint, watching it settle, whipping out your Irish Times and sitting back to enjoy the craic. Without further blarney, in reverse order, here is my guide to the top 10 pubs in Dublin.

10. The Brazen Head

The oldest pub in Dublin, and a must for every pub-lover. The only pub in Dublin with a courtyard, and, in fact, the only pub in central Dublin where you can drink outside [but see Lisa Tierney's update below - Ed]. If the sun is shining – don’t hold your breath – there are few better places to go. With warm fires and welcoming staff, however, this is also an excellent place to visit on a chilly winter’s eve. The Guinness is among the best you will find, and the food is basic but sustaining, and ideal for a session – plates of chips with ketchup, for example. The Brazen Head is divided into several rooms, some big, some small, but all with a great atmosphere. Service is quick and efficient. The pub attracts a mixed clientele, which indeed is characteristic of all the best pubs in Dublin – young trendies, people who have just left work, drunks, tourists, travellers, people out for a mug of tea, locals, country-folk and even priests will be there – all getting on with the business in hand, of having a pint and putting the world to rights. If that is what you want, few pubs can hold a candle to The Brazen Head.

9. Sackville Lounge

A personal favourite of mine, and the only northside pub to make the top 10. It is an oasis amidst the desert of inner-city north Dublin. The only place where you are guaranteed a seat and quick service on a Friday or Saturday night. Pure north Dublin. It looks like it has been transported from the 1950s. The Guinness is exquisite. The bar is tiny, and most nights of the week the clientele consists of men on their own, chatting or watching the television. At weekends the place becomes a little more lively, with an eclectic bunch of drinkers, including actors and groups of middle-aged women out for a session. It seem to be a place for husbands to hang out on Thursday while their wives take advantage of late-night shopping. Fintan, the barman, easily wins the award as Best Dublin Barman. His standards of service are second to none, and he is a laugh. The toasted sandwiches mean you will not have to leave the place all evening. If you fancy a pint on your own or a quiet chat, head for this place. A word of warning for the easily offended – the toilets are disgusting. But who cares?

8. Messrs Maguire

A new pub, serving REAL BEER. Yes, a new trend in Dublin is the brewing, on the premises, of wonderful real ales and this pub, along with The Porterhouse, of which more later, is leading the way. It has bouncers on the door but unless you’re steaming you’ll get in. It is simply superb. The Rusty ale is delicious, smooth, tasty, infinitely more-ish. The Haus lager is equally wonderful. They do not serve Guinness, which is nice. Food ranges from generous bar snacks to full blown restaurant meals. The view over O’Connell Bridge is fabulous. A pub in which it is very difficult to resist the temptation to while away the day – or the week. Clean, a touch on the expensive side, attracting a young-ish but discerning crowd, and likely to be mobbed at the weekends – Messrs Maguire is an excellent addition to Dublin’s range of pubs.

7. The Long Hall

Worth a visit for three reasons – the superb bar staff, again transported from an earlier age, the cracking Guinness, and the mirrors. This is a pub of mirrors – large, small, distorted, clean, dirty. A popular place for an after-work session, and a good antidote to the more trendy Hogan’s, across the road. An ideal stopping off point if you’re heading to Whelan’s or the Mean Fiddler to see a band. Overall, another top boozer.

6. Keogh’s

Like most pubs featured here, this makes a point of being piped-music free. Has a snug and a bell to call for pints. The upstairs bar is probably the finest room in Dublin in which to sit having a pint. At the risk of a cliché, the craic here is always good. There is a piano, and usually someone attempting to play it. So instead of listening to Steps through a jukebox, you’re more likely to get crowds of people singing “The Fields of Athenry” round the old joanna. Can be crowded in the evenings, and has been known to harbour pick-pockets. Nevertheless, any visit to Dublin can only be enriched by a visit to Keoghs.

Read Part Two