Attractions

Wandering Dublin -- just walking down its Georgian streets with a map only in case you get really lost -- is one of the great pleasures of any visit here. There's almost no way you can go wrong. One minute, you're walking along a quiet leafy street and suddenly the Irish Parliament appears before you. A few minutes later, it's gorgeous Merrion Square. Then, the granite buildings of Trinity College -- and on and on. So get a sturdy pair of shoes and have your umbrella at the ready, and head out to discover this rewarding city.

Should You Purchase a Dublin Pass? -- If you're planning a lot of sightseeing in Dublin, the tourism board would like you to consider purchasing its Dublin Pass, which offers free admission to most of the city's major sights, as well as free travel from the airport on the AirCoach shuttle, and discounts at a number of shops, bars, and restaurants.

Unfortunately, the pass is a bit pricey, given that so many of Dublin's sights are free, and the Dublin Pass website muddies the water by including free museums (such as the Chester Beatty Library and the national museums) among the sights you'll have free access to with the pass. My advice is this: Buy the pass, but plan carefully how best to use it. For example, consider buying a pass good for 1 or 2 days, and then see all of the city's most expensive sights (the Guinness Storehouse, Kilmainham Gaol, and so forth) on those days. On the other days of your trip, you can devote your time to the museums, parks, and galleries that charge no entrance fee.

An adult pass costs €31 ($40) for 1 day, €49 ($63) for 2 days, and €59 ($76) for 3 days. A child's pass costs €17 ($22) for 1 day, €29 ($37) for 2 days, and €34 ($44) for 3 days.

You can purchase a pass at any Dublin Tourism office, or online at www.dublinpass.ie.

Historic Buildings

It's not open to the public, but it's worth lingering outside Mansion House, Dawson Street, if only because of its fascinating history. The Queen Anne-style building has been the official residence of Dublin's lord mayors since 1715. In 1919, the first Dáil Éireann (House of Representatives) assembled here to adopt Ireland's Declaration of Independence and ratify the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

Monumental Humor

Dublin boasts countless public monuments, some modest, others boldly evident. The Irish make a sport of naming them, giving their irrepressible wit and ridicule yet another outlet. A sampler:

Poor Molly Malone, who, in song, "wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow," appears with her cockles and mussels at the intersection of Nassau and Grafton streets, across from Trinity College. Due to her ample bosom and plunging neckline, this statue is called "the tart with the cart."

Just around the corner from Molly on Dame Street stands another sculpture, a silent frenzy of trumpeters and streaming columns of water, proclaiming "You're a nation again" -- popularly transliterates as "urination again."

The city's newest monument is the Millennium Spire, a 120m-high (394-ft.) needle thrusting upward in the middle of traffic on O'Connell Street. Made of stainless steel, designed by London architect Ian Ritchie, the spire is designed to reflect the Dublin of the 21st century. (It replaced Nelson's Pillar, a statue of the British Admiral Horatio Nelson, erected under British rule and blown up by the IRA in 1966, on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Uprising. Nelson's head was all that survived, and it is now in the Dublin Civic Museum.) Dubliners have had great fun coming up with a suitable nickname for the Spire. The favorite is simply "the spike," although another front-runner is "the stiletto in the ghetto."

Then there's the statue of Ireland's great patriot, Wolfe Tone. Born at 44 Stafford St. in 1763 and graduated from Trinity College, Tone went on to spark a revolutionary fervor among the Irish. He is commemorated in thoroughly modern fashion on the Northside of St. Stephen's Green by a semicircle of rough-hewn columns locally known as "Tonehenge."

The best renamed statue, though, is no more. Until a few years ago, Anna Livia, James Joyce's mythical personification of the River Liffey, could be found cast in bronze on O'Connell Street across from the General Post Office. The unattractive, hard-to-like statue reclining in streaming water was widely reviled -- you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who didn't hate it. It was nicknamed "the floozy in the Jacuzzi." Due to her intense unpopularity, she has been removed.