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A BEAUTY: Dublin is a city of words and song
The celebration of Ireland’s patron saint in Dublin is one of the biggest days of the year and a good example of how this city is rising to the occasion as a showcase for Ireland and a jumping-off point for further adventures.
Dublin is an important European hub for business and leisure, and she is a city of words and song, as a Unesco City of Literature, the inspiration for writers James Joyce and Flann O’Brien.
But think of Dublin and many of us will think of Guinness. Every single drop of the stuff drunk in the Northern Hemisphere is produced on site at St James’s Gate. Incidentally, for pub quiz fans, regular Guinness isn’t black at all. It’s very, very, very dark red, as a result of the roasting of malted barley.
Any visitor to Dublin will learn this, and a huge amount more, in a visit to the Guinness Storehouse (guinness-storehouse.com), Ireland’s top-rated paid attraction. Recent figures suggest the more than one in four of its visitors were from the UK and an increasing number from countries such as the US, the Netherlands and, of course these days, China.
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ATTRACTION: The amazing Guinness Storehouse is set to double in size by next year
To cope, Guinness announced a multi-million-euro expansion programme, aiming to build on the success of the Storehouse tours, eating experiences such as the 1837 Restaurant, tastings and the stunning Gravity Bar, the highest in Dublin, which offers a 360-degree panorama of the city (and where you can pick up your complimentary pint of Guinness with your Storehouse ticket or soft drink for the kids).
This amazing space is set to double in size by next year, helping to cater for and add to the 17million people who have visited since 2000, with 1.7m in 2017 alone.
Obviously visiting on or around St Patrick’s Day is a must, with live music, food and the perfect pint of the dark red stuff.
For real fans, or those that want to be, there is also the enticing Guinness Academy Connoisseur Experience in a private room in the Storehouse. Sign up for a special tasting session and be part of a journey through the history, tastes and smells of Guinness. Your guide will take you to far-flung parts of the world not immediately associated with the drink, such as Nigeria and the West Indies.
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MUST-SEE: A visit on or around St Patrick’s Day is a must
Gateway to North America
But Dublin has another, more practical reason to visit, one that isn’t widely known and is crucial for Transatlantic travellers, especially from Scotland.
If you are thinking of flying to the US in the next few months, there are plenty of horror stories about the length of time it takes to clear immigration and customs in the States, with hours-long queues reported at airports such as JFK in New York.
For many Scots travellers this can add to the hassle of having to connect via a London airport. Not a great start to your trip – but there is a much more attractive option, which is where we come back to spending time in Dublin.
If you book an Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flight to the US, pre-clearance and customs and agriculture controls can be carried out in the special Dublin Terminal 2 facility, operated by US personnel. No other airport anywhere in Europe other than Shannon on Ireland’s west coast offers this service and it means huge time savings at the other end of your journey in the US, leaving you free to get your trip up and running immediately. Flights are available from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen from just £199. A short hop to Dublin can therefore double up as that jumping-off point for your trip to New York, Orlando or the US West Coast.
Philadelphia and Seattle are new routes that were added for this year.
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FASHION HUB: There's plenty to see in Dublin after visiting the Guinness Storehouse
Fashionable city
And while you are in Dublin there’s plenty more to explore that isn’t Guinness-related if you are keen to spend a couple of days.
If you want to be a true tourist there’s Temple Bar, with plenty of pubs and restaurants, but that’s just a starting point for some cultural wanderings.
Try heading for trendy Drury Street or the Creative Quarter, a hub of Irish fashion. Shops such as Om Diva (omdivaboutique.com) or the Irish Design Shop (irishdesignshop.com), run by jewellers Clare Grennan and Laura Caffrey, showcase the clothing and crafts of 21st-century Ireland. Laura and Clare can even arrange for you to create your own jewellery at their workshop.
Don’t forget to try out the food and drink on sale around here too, from cool shops such as Fallon & Byrne in Exchequer Street and Murphy’s Ice Cream (murphysicecream.ie). Ireland is home to some of the finest farm produce in the world and owners Sean and Kieran Murphy know how to make the best of it.
Thanks to Brooks Hotel on Drury Street, Dublin 2 (brookshotel.ie).
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