First time to Ireland. Need itenerary help!

Re #22 and #23 - as Barney suggests, rail travel is rarely going to be much quicker than road in Ireland. However, there are reasonable train services from Ennis, Tralee, Killarney, Cork and Waterford to Dublin.

These days almost all Irish pubs offer a very wide range of drinks. Whiskey (being an Irish invention...) is available everywhere, though it's pretty unusual to mix it with Coke in Ireland - more commonly with lemonade. Cider is very widely available (though the quality is pretty dire), and a wide range of spirits as well as a smaller range of generally mediocre wines is available in pretty much every pub. As well as alcopops, if your friends want to stick to the fruity flavours! So your beer-adverse friends shouldn't have any difficulty.

Excellent! Whiskey and lemonade? Wouldn't have thought about that! Do I just order a "whiskey and lemonade?"

Another question for yall!

Which area of Dublin should we stay in? There will be 3 ladies and we want to be in a safe area close to the main attractions we need to see? But I have no idea which area that is?

For the most part, unsafe areas of Dublin don't have hotels of note.

You haven't mentioned budget but the Shelbourne Hotel is very nice, very expensive and close to attractions. D4 hotels are a bit further away from the attractions but very good quality and quite inexpensive at the moment. Also check out Jurys Inn Hotels - but take a look at the maps, the actual hotels are a good five or ten minute walk Temple Bar/Trinity College areas which some people might regard as the area of the 'main attractions' of Dublin.

Agree with Mark. The areas of central Dublin that you would probably be better off staying away from are, very roughly speaking, north-east (between Gardiner Street and Amiens Street) and south-west (everywhere west of Patrick Street, except the main road along Thomas Street-James Street). But there aren't any hotels there that I'm aware of.

A couple of hotels have opened recently in areas where you might feel a bit less comfortable walking around at night: Smithfield Market and Granby Row (Maldron Hotel). There are a lot of hotels on Gardiner Street, which is kind of downmarket but not in any way dangerous. By and large any address in the Dublin 2 or Dublin 4 postcodes should be fine, as well as on the main streets or shopping areas in Dublin 1. Also Dublin 3 if you are willing to go a bit further out (the advantage being that you might find somewhere near the sea).

Have any of you heard of The O'Callaghan Davenport Hotel near Merriorn Square? That's where our travel lady is wanting to put us, but some of the reviews I've read aren't great? Is it in a good location? (I don't know postalcodes or areas of Dublin to know if Merrion Square is good or not).

I don't really know much about hotels in Dublin, but I'm pretty sure the Davenport used to have a good reputation. Merrion Square is a pleasant and very central area. As Mark said, most Dublin hotels, and probably all the hotels in that price bracket, are going to be in good areas.

What about Ballsbridge area?

That's ya D4 hotels #37.

Yes, absolutely fine, though obviously less central.

I think any 4-star hotel should be in a pretty decent area, except for the Maldron hotels on Smithfield and off Parnell Square as mentioned above. Even the one off Parnell Square is basically fine, though getting into a rather down-market area.

In Ballsbridge try the SANDYMOUNTHOTEL.IE /
close to the DART ( TRAINS RUN EVERY : 10 )