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Cal's Guide To Dublin
Purple Dublin resident Cal talks us through Dublin's best bitsThe City
The North side of the city has traditionally been quite neglected compared to the Southside, but this is slowly changing, and O’Connell street has recently been given a revamp. The south side area between Georges Street, Temple Bar and over towards Grafton Street is known as Dublin’s trendy triangle, and has most of Dublin’s interesting clothes shops, record stores, cafes and restaurants.
If you are going to rent a car be aware that driving in Dublin is a bit of a nightmare of the uninitiated, the whole city is laid out in a one way system, that often makes no sense.
Most tourists gravitate towards Temple Bar, but it mainly caters for hen and stag parties on the piss. However there is a great open air food market in Temple Bar on Saturdays, this happens at the back of the Irish Film Center, which is a nice independent cinema. There is also a speakers corner every evening at Temple Bar Square which is quite interesting
Bars/Pubs
Grogans (South William Street): A nice old school place frequented by artists and old regulars. There is art all over the walls for sale, some of which is quite good. Chances are the creator is having a pint next to you.
Dice Bar (South Anne Street): New York style place with a cool dark interior and cool orange lighting, has different DJ’s every night and always gets a decent crowd who are usually up for a dance. The "Teddy Boy" night on Sundays is worth a look, classic rockabilly 50’s style crowd with lots of classic cars parked outside.
The Cobblestone; For proper trad music, and none of the tourist fare, check out this place at the top of Smithfield square, near the Dice bar. There are musicians there every night, and the pub stocks beers from a nearby microbrewery too.
Bia Bar: A really nice new place which attracts a big Europeans and African crowd, there’s good mix of reggae and various other eclectic styles on Fridays, and once a month on Thursdays there is a free gig with the likes of Soul Jazz or the Unabombers. Catch me playing there the odd time too.
Ice-Bar (Parnell Street): Well different from the rest of the Dublin pub scene, this place feels like a bar somewhere down a side street in Bangkok, you have to ask the guys in the Chinese off-license at the front to buzz you in first. On weekends there is always quality tunes to be found from various collectives. There is usually decent visuals too
Anseo: This is at the top of Camden street, it’s nice relaxed place with well good DJ’s on Fridays and Saturdays, and usually some dancing too.
International Bar: The Downstairs bar is always good for a pint, and on Sundays the upstairs room hosts Lazybird, a night of experimental and Electronic music and visuals that has had the likes of Xela over recently. On Sundays it all happens in a nice small dark room to help you chase away the long dark teatime of the soul on a Sunday.
Sin E: Really popular place on the quays that can get pretty rammed but is usually pretty good.
Hogans and the Globe on Georges street are always busy and attract the trendy Dublin crowd. Watch your bags here though as thieves stalk this area!
Clubs/Gigs:
The best/most established "underground" night in Dublin is "Electric City", which happens every Thursday night at Traffic on Abbey street. All sorts of international electro and techno luminaries pay weekly visits, and the price is kept to a sensible level, which is rare in Dublin these days!
There is also Bodytonic, a weekly house club in a nice venue called Wax, these guys also run an electro-clash/electro rock night called Backlash here on Thursdays. Up the road in the Pod complex there is a weekly Saturday night called Pogo, which is always busy. Also in this building there is a venue called Crawdaddy which hosts loads of gigs, check www.pod.ie for listings.
The Village down the road hosts similar gigs to Crawdaddy but caters for slightly bigger names, Whelans next door is a well known Irish indie pub that does gigs and club nights too.
The Music center in Temple Bar does bigger scale electro, techno and indie gigs, but the venue tends to be a bit soulless and empty, unless its very busy.
To find out what’s going on in Dublin check out the Ticket every Friday in the Irish Times. The free Totally Dublin magazine also has listings, as does the Event Guide, Entertainment.ie and the IE-Dance Group: groups.yahoo.com/group/ie-dance/
***update***
Bodytonic and Backlash, have recently moved to a new venue, Rogue on Dame Street
Record Stores
For electronic sounds City Discs in Temple Bar is good, and for more electro/techno vibes Selectah on Crow street is the best. They also run the electric city night at traffic.
Food
Eating out in Dublin has become really expensive, and the quality ain't always that great. However Gruel on Dame street does really good simple food for reasonable prices. Dunne & Cresenzi on South. Frederick St, does nice Italian stuff.
A nice Italian Quarter has recently appeared on the North side of the river near the Jervis Street LUAS stop. It has a lovely vibe with lots of people sitting outside chilling with a glass of wine.
Art & Nature
Around the corner from St Stephens Green lies the Iveagh Gardens, a beautiful park off Harcourt street which is probably Dublin’s best kept secrets.
The gardens and grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (near Heuston station) are also great, the gallery itself is always well worth a look.
To get away from Dublin you could take the DART rail service to Dalkey and Killiney along the Wicklow coast. This is where Dublin’s "elite" set hang out, and there are some really nice beaches down this way. On the north side Bull Island is a nice big beach only 15 minutes from the center.
Written: 6th Jul, 05
Read: 6556 times
