Sights in Ireland
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Clare Genealogical Centre
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Cathedral
This 13th-century Gothic structure overshadows the other ruins. Entry is through a small porch facing the Hall of the Vicars Choral. The cathedral's western location is formed by the Arch-bishop's Residence, a 15th-century, four-storey castle that had its great hall built over the nave. Soaring above the centre of the cathedral is a huge square tower with a turret on the southwestern corner. Scattered throughout are monuments, panels from 16th-century altar tombs and coats of arms. If you have binoculars, look for the numerous stone heads on capitals and corbels high above the ground.
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Bantry House
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Unitarian Church & Royal College of Surgeons
Across the road from the western side of St Stephen’s Green is the 1863 Unitarian Church and the Royal College of Surgeons, with a fine facade. During the 1916 Easter Rising, the building was occupied by the colourful Countess Markievicz (1868–1927), an Irish Nationalist married to a supposed Polish count. The columns still bear bullet marks.
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Powerscourt Townhouse Shopping Centre
This elegant Richard Cassels–designed townhouse was built between 1771 and 1774, and boasts some fine plasterwork by Michael Stapleton among its features. These days it struts its stuff as Dublin's most stylish shopping centre as well as one of the more pleasant spots to get a bite of lunch.
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Old Library
To the south of the square is the Old Library, built in a rather severe style by Thomas Burgh between 1712 and 1732. Despite Ireland’s independence, the Library Act of 1801 still entitles Trinity College Library, along with four libraries in Britain, to a free copy of every book published in the UK. Housing this bounty requires nearly another 1km of shelving every year and the collection amounts to around 4.5 million books. Of course, these cannot all be kept at the college library, so there are now additional library storage facilities dotted around Dublin.
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Douglas Hyde Gallery of Modern Art
This is one of those marvellous galleries that seems to have escaped the public radar, partly because of its location tucked away on campus at Trinity. Its ambitious contemporary program sticks firmly in the cutting-edge camp and exhibitions here are often ‘enhanced’ with film, live music or performance-driven sideshows.
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Natural History Museum
Dusty, weird and utterly compelling, this window into Victorian times has barely changed since Scottish explorer Dr David Livingstone opened it in 1857 – before disappearing into the African jungle for a meeting with Henry Stanley. Which was perfectly fine until July 2007 when a large section of the original stone staircase collapsed, injuring 10 people and forcing the closure of one of the city's most beloved museums for a major restoration. It reopened in 2010, once again allowing us into explore its (slightly less) creaking interior crammed with some two million stuffed animals, skeletons and other specimens from around the world, ranging from West African apes to…
reviewed
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Doolin Cave
The Doolin area is popular with cavers. A little over 1km north of Roadford you’ll find Doolin Cave, which boasts an enormous stalactite that looks like a giant squid. The main entrance is at the Fisherstreet Potholes; tour times vary by season.
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Barracks Heritage Centre
The Old Barracks Heritage Centre is housed in a tower of the former Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). The barracks were burnt down in 1922 by anti-Treaty forces. Today it looks over-restored, like an oddball confection.
Topped by a spiral staircase ascending to a lookout (best suited for those who don't care to see anything), the museum covers the Fenian Rising, Daniel O'Connell and Caherciveen's other great son, Gaelic football star Jack O'Shea. There are recreations of a local dwelling at the time of the Famine and of the barracks during the 1916 Easter Rising.
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Allihies Copper Mine Museum
The Allihies Copper Mine Museum is the result of years of work by the community and has engaging exhibits plus a summer cafe housed in an old wooden church.
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Trinity College
On a summer's evening, when the bustling crowds have gone for the day, there's hardly a more delightful place in Dublin than the grounds of Ireland's most prestigious university, a masterpiece of architecture and landscaping beautifully preserved in Georgian aspic. Not only is this Dublin's most attractive bit of historic real estate, but it's also home to one of the world's most famous – and most beautiful – books, the gloriously illuminated Book of Kells. There is no charge to wander around the gardens on your own between 8am and 10pm.
Officially, the university's name is the University of Dublin, but Trinity is its sole college. Its charter was granted by Elizabeth…
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Temple Bar
Many a wild night has been had within the cobbled precincts of Temple Bar, Dublin's most visited neighbourhood, a maze of streets and alleys sandwiched between Dame St and the Liffey, running from Trinity College to Christ Church Cathedral. But it's not all booze and infamy: you can browse for vintage clothes, check out the latest art installations, get your nipples pierced and nibble on Mongolian barbecue. In good weather you can watch outdoor movies in one square or join in a pulsating drum circle in another – just another slice of life in the city's most popular neighbourhood.
During the day and on weekday nights Temple Bar does have something of a bohemian bent about…
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St Stephen's Green & Around
As you watch the assorted groups of friends, lovers and individuals escaping the confines of the office, splaying themselves across the nine elegantly landscaped hectares of St Stephen's Green and looking to catch a few rays of precious sun, consider that those same hectares once formed a common for public whippings, burnings and hanging. These days, the harshest treatment you'll get at Dublin's favourite lunchtime escape is the warden chucking you off the green for playing football or Frisbee.
The buildings around the square date mainly from the mid-18th century, when the green was landscaped and became the centrepiece of Georgian Dublin. The northern side was known as…
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National Museum of Ireland – Natural History
Dusty, weird and utterly compelling, this window into Victorian times has barely changed since Scottish explorer Dr David Livingstone opened it in 1857 – before disappearing into the African jungle for a meeting with Henry Stanley. Which was perfectly fine until July 2007 when a large section of the original stone staircase collapsed, injuring 10 people and forcing the closure of one of the city's most beloved museums for a major restoration. It reopened in 2010, once again allowing us into explore its (slightly less) creaking interior crammed with some two million stuffed animals, skeletons and other specimens from around the world, ranging from West African apes to…
reviewed
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National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology & History
Designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and completed in 1890, the star attraction of this branch of the National Museum of Ireland is the Treasury, home to the finest collection of Bronze Age and Iron Age gold artefacts in the world, and the world's most complete collection of medieval Celtic metalwork.
The centrepieces of the Treasury's unique collection are Ireland's most famous crafted artefacts, the Ardagh Chalice and the Tara Brooch. Measuring 17.8cm high and 24.2cm in diameter, the 12th-century Ardagh Chalice is made up of gold, silver, bronze, brass, copper and lead. Put simply, this is the finest example of Celtic art ever found. The equally renowned Tara Brooch…
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National Library
Next door to the Kildare St entrance of Leinster House, the suitably sedate National Library was built from 1884 to 1890, at the same time and to a similar design as the National Museum, by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane. Its extensive collection has many valuable early manuscripts, first editions, maps and other items of interest. Parts of the library are open to the public, including the domed reading room where Stephen Dedalus expounded his views on Shakespeare in <em>Ulysses</em>. For those prints that are worth a thousand words, you’ll have to head down to Temple Bar to the National Photographic Archive extension of the library.</p><p>There’s a <strong>Genealogy Advisory…
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National Gallery
A magnificent Caravaggio and a breathtaking collection of works by Jack B Yeats – William Butler's younger brother – are the main reasons to visit the National Gallery, but not the only ones. Its excellent collection is strong in Irish art, but there are also high-quality collections of every major European school of painting. There are free tours at 3pm on Saturdays and at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm on Sundays.
The gallery has four wings: the original Dargan Wing, the Milltown Rooms, the North Wing and the impressive Millennium Wing. On the ground floor of the Dargan Wing (named after railway magnate and art lover William Dargan, whose statue graces the front lawn) is the…
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Little Museum of Dublin
The idea is ingeniously simple: a museum, spread across two rooms of an elegant Georgian building, devoted to the history of Dublin in the 20th century, made up of memorabilia contributed by the general public. Open only since summer 2011, the contributions have been impressive – amid the nostalgic posters, timeworn bric-a-brac and wonderful photographs of personages and cityscapes of yesteryear are some extraordinary finds, including an original copy of the fateful letter given to the Irish envoys to the treaty negotiations of 1921, whose contradictory instructions were at the heart of the split that resulted in the Civil War. But you don't need to know anything about…
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Leinster House
All the big decisions are made – or rubber-stamped – at Oireachtas na Éireann (Irish Parliament). It was built by Richard Cassels in the Palladian style between 1745 and 1748, and was considered the forerunner of the Georgian fashion that became the norm for Dublin’s finer residences. Its Kildare St facade looks like a townhouse (which inspired Irish architect James Hoban’s designs for the US White House), whereas the Merrion Sq frontage was made to resemble a country mansion.
The first government of the Irish Free State moved in from 1922, and both the Dáil (lower house) and Seanad (senate) still meet here to discuss the affairs of the nation and gossip at the…
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Dublin Castle
If you're looking for a medieval castle straight out of central casting you'll be disappointed; the stronghold of British power in Ireland for 700 years is principally an 18th-century creation that is more hotch-potch palace than turreted castle. Only the Record Tower, completed in 1258, survives from the original Anglo-Norman fortress commissioned by King John from 1204.
It was officially handed over to Michael Collins on behalf of the Irish Free State in 1922, when the British viceroy is reported to have rebuked Collins on being seven minutes late. Collins replied, 'We've been waiting 700 years, you can wait seven minutes.' The castle is now used by the Irish government…
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Cockle Row Cottages
The fishing village of Groomsport, on the eastern edge of town, has a picturesque harbour overlooked by Cockle Row Cottages, one of which has been restored as a typical fisherman's home of 1910.
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