okay, I went there once like 8 years ago for 4 days but now am going for a wedding and will have about 2 days on my own. Suggestions besides the obvious (ie I am def. going to see the Book of Kells again...Guinness Factory..Temple Bar, etc)??

Are you staying only in Dublin or can you travel to the west coast at all? It is amazingly beautiful there.

Cliffs of Moher for one.

Also, but doubtful that two days is enough time, the Skelligs off the west coast were my favorite thing there. I was there for 4 months and did not come across anything better.

I remember there was this little James Joyce museum somewhere in Dublin that I went to. I can't remember at all where it was located.

I went to see a play at the theater that Yeats helped create(can't remember the name of it) and one of the characters was the guy that played Longshanks' son in Braveheart. After the show some of the people that I went with were talking to him and did nothing but ask the guy what Mel Gibson was like. I felt so bad for him.

His name is Peter Hanley. My mother's maiden name is Hanley. Therefore, I am awesome.

I am going to a wedding in this little teeny tiny town with a huge castle smack in the middle of Ireland. It's really just for a long weekend. I don't have the $ or vacation time. That's how I roll.

so you're time away from being in the middle of Ireland is going to be in Dublin then? I guess you can scratch my ideas then. haha

There is some cool stuff to see in the Midlands.

You could go to Clanmacnoise which is a cool old ruined abbey in Shannon Bridge area.

There is a cool, or I should say, interesting Peat Bog Tour. Sounds odd, but very interesting, and cool to be out on with the bouncy ground.

You could take a drive down to Kilkenny which has a cool castle, great pubs, some cool shops, the kilkenny design center, the black abbey. etc.


I really suggest going to here. http://www.tripadvisor.com once there, click on the forums, and advance to the Ireland forum. Always good ideas there.

Will you have a car? If yes, from the midlands you can get to either coast in 2 hours.

Have fun ! We loved our time there in '04.

One of the coolest cities, sadly I was only able to hit the obvious sites that you mentioned. I did hit the Jameson distillery which was great. I also made it out to the coast to Malahide castle (which is part of the city bus route) which was quite nice as well. In the city, I went to Dublin castle as well. There's still plenty of things to see within city, personally I just liked walking around hitting different pubs and moseying about.

Do a pub crawl. That'll get you through one day real good.

All my info is out of date but I lived in Dublin for a few years - if you're looking for something specific I might could point you at it.

You can go see the severed head of Oliver of Armagh just up the road in Drogheda (also handy to Newgrange if you dig the neolithic). It was preserved miraculously for a while, but then they had to creosote it. Think there's a scapula, too!

Where's the little town with the castle?