Dublin

if you want hipster food go to bear or crackbird, google away. if you want guinness go to keogh's on south anne street. if you want music i'd say maybe twisted pepper (good lineups but venue is okayish at best) or bernard shaw (loads of children but a decent pub with good beers relative to dublin in general)

not sure about good high end restaurants, it's been too long for me and my friends don't seem to know. winding stair was the last one that people rated and still seem to.

some of my recs may be out of date, don't live there.

hang on, i think cozen likes craft beer, if so "against the grain" is dublin's craft beer bar, and in a fairly vibrant part.

i am ready to be told i don't have a clue tho, the longer i live away, the more i tend to spend my weekends home in suburbia cos i enjoy how totally different from london it is.

Also good for interesting beer is Mulligans in Stoneybatter (where I spent most of today)

otm, sean, very good spot

tbh, dublin's not short of quality pubs for beer, ambience or grub. you'd be grand pretty much anywhere.

What kind of things do you like, Cozen?

Some cultural/historical things to consider:
- Kilmainham Jail (where the Brit bastards killed our independence heroes)
- Chester Beatty Library (fascinating boutique museum of orientalist stuff bequeathed to the state by rich collector guy)
- National Museum on Kildare Street (you want bog bodies, we got bog bodies; also things made of gold and an Egyptian mummy, stuff, etc.)
- Literary Pub Crawl (out of work actors tell you literary anecdotes and bring you to pubs)
- 1916 Rising Walking Tour (you get brought around to sites of exciting uprising action)

My pub recommendations:
- Lord Edward (old school; make sure you go to the upstairs lounge; if in the mood for expensive fish food try their restaurant on 2nd Floor)
- The Brazen Head (popular with tourists, though don't let that put you off. Also, you are a tourist. And it does really nice Guinness and is official oldest pub in Dublin)
- Palace in Fleet Street (not to be confused with Palace on Camden Street, a hellhole; Palace on Fleet Street is appealing old school pub with literary connections but is always full)

I think I will be in London that weekend so no fappage from me, sadly.

I'd back all of those.

National Gallery & the National Museum at Collins Barracks are definitely worth a look too.

The Black Sheep on Capel Street is less smelly new location of Against The Grain crew.
+1 for Chester Beatty.
I am not great at restaurants but if you're looking for decent but not OTT try Winding Stair. Great view if you can get by a window.

hi gelligt

Hi DMac, didn't realise you'd moved up. Story?

As an aside for tourist spot suggestions I was in Glasnevin today for the first time. Very interesting even if you're not Irish.

Great things about Dublin:
1) You can meet groups of friends out all round town that are a walk to get to rather than a bus/train/taxi ride away.
2) The quirkiness is coming back that had been a bit drowned out for few years.
3) The Screen, The Lighthouse & The IFI.
4) The parks. Especially Phoenix Park.
5) View from Capel Street down towards Parliament Street.
6) The increase in non-Diageo beers in more and more pubs.
7) Dead zoo (even if you can't go upstairs into the galleries).

Bad things:

1) There are none. Haters be hating.

Lies obviously. Dublin bus (even with the new app), actually just the public transport in general is pretty poor. Run down buildings that have only been around for 10 years. The abandoned Anglo Irish building.

thanks everyone - this is more than enough to be getting on with

The Black Sheep on Capel Street is less smelly new location of Against The Grain crew.

this sounds good, fuck going way southside for a drink when i have to get the 42 from my parents' place covertly drinking a can lest i get beheaded or whatever the current sentence in ireland for peacefully drinking a cannister of liquid which contains alcohol as opposed to a cannister of liquid which doesn't is.

northside till i die.

major re-evaluation goin on here

what do you mean? (genuine question...)

no wait, you're from malahide or somewhere iirc?

Spiritually southside imo

Xp lol just that yr a southsider in my head

i'm probly gonna be living in clontarf this time next week, so it's not like i can talk tbf....

i can't claim any northside cred at all yeah, though i do think even malahide or howth, posh as they are, breeds a diff type of person to actual southside. posh southside has a more urban insular quality, malahide is a bit of a backwater, county dublin etc.

i did go to belvedere tho so there you go. yet again, a sort of difference from its southside counterparts but kinda the same.

what does fucking infuriate me is a few years in london of nobody understanding my voice on the phone has given me a nasal voice that suddenly makes any irish person think i'm from blackrock. this never happened until the last year or two. not that i had a huge north accent before but it's defo a swing based on having had to work in bbc.

heh do you sound like wogan, i wonder

I've started hypercorrecting my r's after years of English people going "or what?" and I kind of hate myself for it. Not that Greystones ever gave me a credible accent in the first place but still.

oo-er misses /frankiehowerd

heh do you sound like wogan, i wonder

my entire family are from limerick too, it's a similar fusion.

that's why you love that youtube selecta so much i guess....

i have been speaking in phrases from it for months, with many people i know bruv.

it's always mememe with u ppl

Well if you're darting it to Malahide they have another place near Connolly. Or is that the one on Dorset Street? They've kind of done a Porterhouse on it.

I agree with DMac, Howth is spiritually Southside. Sutton as well.

I too shall move soon to leafy Northside. Also Clontarf area. This is all most strange.

Has there been a Dublin FAP recently or was the one a few years ago the last one?

Dare it even be suggested? Is this the most passive aggressive FAP suggestion of all time? I don't care, not bothered, etc.

Oh yeah DV spot on re. Lord Edward. I also like Bull & Castle for draught Metalman.

Spiritually southside imo

Malahide... the South Side's West Berlin.

i'm probly gonna be living in clontarf this time next week, so it's not like i can talk tbf....

Just a short walk away from Barcode... RAPPEH, and an excuse to post this link again:http://www.dublinpubscene.com/thepubs/barcode.html

Goddamn full justification.

Well if you're darting it to Malahide they have another place near Connolly.

yeah, people keep saying it is good. But I am developing a slight reaction against the AtG/Black Sheep/OtherOne empire - the beer might be nice, but some of Dublin's oldschool pubs are nicer.

jesus@that barcode link. the 42 nightlink became significantly nastier when it started stopping outside that kip.

Bleedin rappeh!

I'd forgotten that DV, Is it still going I wonder.

I hear you re. Realaleification of Dublin. It does make a nice change though.

What is Hogans like now they have No Name Bar upstairs? Haven't been out that way in yonks.

that no name bar is kinda crap in my view, tho i was last there a good year or so ago, maybe more. just a big noisy sparse drink box.

i can't stop reading the barcode comments and thinking how everyone who posted them will die one day.

To summarise: FAP at Barcode then?

Bleedin rappeh!

looking forward to being in dublin next month for a couple of days!

i genuinely struggle to imagine what i would talk to a non-ilf ilxor about irl tbh

The magic of indoor plumbing?

is barcode near clontarf castle

Sadly not! Sure you could taxi out. Getting back would be a problem.

because I'd be dead

barcode is the sort of place that gives getting completely fucking trollied a bad name.

Hairy Lemon. It is a mystery why it prevails and yet I am expected to go tomorrow night. Could be worse. Could be the Market Bar. Or Hogans. Man, what happened to Hogans?

never went to barcode in the end

Tell me all.

I suppose you went for all the hackneyed locations. I dunno why Barcode doesn't do well, it could set itself up in Cara as the anti-Johnny Foxs.

it does amazingly well, or it did when i lived in bac.

didn't get up to all that much exciting tbh

was delayed 10hrs by ryanair on our flight out so lost a day. had some americans in tow so did a lot of touristy stuff: merrion sq, national gallery, the guinness storehouse. pints & the dublin game at the duke off dawson st., food at elephant & castle in temple bar was OK.

will say dublin is very pretty in places; the georgian townhouses are gorgeous

That is rough re. Ryanair. A pity that you lost so much time. Still, looks like you made the touristy best of what time you had.

Not sure if this is the best place to post this but:

I live in Northern California (flying out of SF, Sacramento or Oakland) and have traveled to Europe twice in the last 2 years, planning a third and no matter how widely I search, going on 3 years, flying into Dublin is the cheapest in western Europe by a margin of about $300. I never really hear anyone else mention this, though, irl or online...I feel like most transatlantic travelers don't share my experience in finding Dublin flights so cheap? I love Dublin, but would love to see a new city en route to my ultimate destination, Valencia, Spain. Any tips, other places to search, insights into this huge price gap would be greatly appreciated.

Long haul taxes are low out of Dublin and there's lots of competition between airlines. Frankfurt and Amsterdam might be worth checking though.