Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Getting to Know Dublin
D
ublin, like most ancient cities, lies sprawled along a river. The
Liffey has divided Dublin into north and south for more than 1,000
years. Neither as romantic as the Seine nor as mighty as the Missis-
sippi, the Liffey is just there, old and polluted, with walls to sit on
or lean against when your legs give out. Still, it always has been the
center of things here, and it does make for a pretty picture on a good
day. The Liffey continues to divide the town as it once divided
Viking from Celt and Norman from Norse.
As long as anyone can remember, the buzzing, prosperous hub of
Dublin has lay mostly south of the Liffey. The area containing most
of the best hotels, restaurants, shops, and sights is a small, well-
defined compound that can be easily walked in an hour. It comprises
a large part of Dublin 2 (the postal code for each neighborhood is
listed in “The Neighborhoods in Brief,” later in this chapter), begin-
ning with the Georgian elegance of St. Stephen's Green, moving
toward the river via bustling Grafton Street, heading farther north
and west through the trendy cafe scene of Temple Bar.
That said, a visit confined to this small pocket of Dublin is not a
true visit to Dublin. An hour's walk from the top of Grafton Street,
across the Liffey, up O'Connell Street, and farther into north
Dublin is a walk through time and, simultaneously, a glimpse of
some of the pieces that must eventually fit together. Explore, get a
haircut (in a barbershop, not a salon), get lost and ask directions,
and you may uncover a time capsule from the Dublin of a century
ago—or was it only a generation?
1 Orientation
Dublin is 222km (138 miles) NE of Shannon Airport, 258km (160 miles) NE of Cork,
167km (104 miles) S of Belfast, 309km (192 miles) NE of Killarney, 219km (136 miles)
E of Galway, 237km (147 miles) SE of Derry, and 142km (88 miles) N of Wexford
ARRIVING
BY PLANE Aer Lingus,
Ireland's national airline, operates regularly
scheduled flights into Dublin International Airport from Chicago,
