Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [70]
The point is made deliciously moot when you finally get a pint in your hand and let the cream pass your lips in the vertiginous heights of the Gravity Bar. It’s the best pint of Guinness in the world, claim the cognoscenti (while there’s no arguing with how good it tastes, give us a pint among friends in a spit-and-sawdust pub closer to the ground any day of the week).
Around the corner at No 1 Thomas St (Map; closed to public) a plaque marks the house where Arthur Guinness lived. In a yard across the road stands St Patrick’s Tower (Map; closed to public), Europe’s tallest smock windmill (with a revolving top), which was built around 1757.
To get to the Storehouse, take bus 21A, 78 or 78A from Fleet St, or the Luas Red Line to James’s.
IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Ireland’s most important collection of modern and contemporary Irish art is housed in the elegant, airy expanse of the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, which in 1991 became the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA; Map; 612 9900; www.imma.ie; Military Rd; admission free; 10am-5.30pm Tue-Sat, noon-5.30pm Sun).
The Royal Hospital Kilmainham was designed by William Robinson (who also designed Marsh’s Library; Click here), and was built between 1680 and 1687 as a home for retired soldiers. It fulfilled this role until 1928, after which it languished for nearly 50 years until a 1980s restoration. At the time of its construction, it was one of the finest buildings in Ireland and there were mutterings that it was altogether too good a place for its residents.
The gallery’s 4000-strong collection includes works by artists such as Picasso, Miró and Vasarely, as well as works by more contemporary artists, including Iran do Espírito Santo, Philip Taaffe and Kathy Prendergast. The gallery displays ever-changing shows from its own works, and hosts regular touring exhibitions.
Modern Irish art is always on display, and Irish and international artists live and work on site in the converted coach houses behind the south wing. The New Galleries, in the restored Deputy Master’s House, should also not be missed. There are free guided tours (2.30pm Wednesday, Friday and Sunday) of the museum’s exhibits throughout the year, but we strongly recommend the free seasonal heritage tours (hourly from 11am to 4pm Tuesday to Saturday, and from 1pm to 4pm Sunday) of the building itself, which run from July to September. To get there catch bus 24, 79 or 90 from Aston Quay.
KILMAINHAM JAIL
If you have any desire to understand Irish history – especially the juicy bits about resistance to English rule – then a visit to Kilmainham Jail (Map; 453 5984; www.heritageireland.com; Inchicore Rd; adult/student/child €6/2/2; 9.30am-5pm Apr-Oct, 9.30am-4pm Mon-Sat, 10am-4pm Sun Nov-Mar) is an absolute must. This threatening grey building, built between 1792 and 1795, has played a role in virtually every act of Ireland’s painful path to independence.
The uprisings of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916 ended with the leaders’ confinement here. Robert Emmet, Thomas Francis Meagher, Charles Stewart Parnell and the 1916 Easter Rising leaders were all visitors, but it was the executions in 1916 that most deeply etched the jail’s name into the Irish consciousness. Of the 15 executions that took place between 3 May and 12 May after the revolt, 14 were conducted here. As a finale, prisoners from the Civil War were held here from 1922. The jail closed in 1924.
An excellent audiovisual introduction to the building is followed by a thought-provoking tour of the eerie prison, the largest unoccupied building of its kind in Europe. Sitting incongruously outside in the yard is the Asgard, the ship that successfully ran the British blockade to deliver arms to Nationalist forces in 1914. The tour finishes in the gloomy yard where the 1916 executions took place.
To get here, catch bus 23, 51, 51A, 78 or 79 from Aston Quay.
WAR MEMORIAL GARDENS
By our reckoning,