9 Places to Visit Famous Dubliners

Kilmainham Gaol was the grim final abode of Padraig Pearse, the political activist who read the Irish Proclamation of Freedom on the steps of the General Post Office during the Easter Rising in 1916. Take a moving guided tour of the cells where Padraig and his comrades were held before their execution.

Inside Merrion Square Park, the striking life-size sculpture of writer Oscar Wilde is made from coloured stones sourced from 3 separate continents. The writer lounges on a rock, as though gazing wistfully at his nearby birthplace, the restored Number One Merrion Square.

Spend an evening in the pub where folk band the Dubliners made their name. Photos of great music stars of the past line the walls and local musicians turn up for impromptu traditional music sessions.

There are around 1.5 million bodies lying in Glasnevin Cemetery, of rich and poor, hunger strikers and presidents. But it is the grave of Michael Collins, who was central to the struggle for Irish independence, that most people come to visit. More than 85 years after he died, his grave is still covered with fresh flowers.

The author of Gulliver’s Travels was also dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, where he was buried after he died in 1745. After a visit to his place of rest, head for the library, established in 1701, to see the desk where he wrote his world-famous novel.

A peaceful enclave off busy O’Connell Street, the garden’s focal point is Oisin Kelly’s huge sculpture of birds in flight, symbolising freedom. With a huge water feature in the shape of a cross, the garden commemorates those who died in the Easter Rising and the struggle for Irish freedom.

In James Joyce's epic novel Ulysses, our hero Leopold Bloom eats a gorgonzola sandwich while sipping Burgundy in Davy Byrnes, a bar which the author himself frequented. On Bloomsday (16 June), Edwardian-clad actors re-enact the Joycean character’s day, which of course includes his cheese-and-wine feast.