Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [85]
Diversions ( 677 2255; www.templebar.ie) Free outdoor music, children’s and film events at weekends from June to September in Temple Bar’s Meeting House Sq.
Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures ( 271 9555; www.festivalofworldcultures.com) Colourful multicultural music, art and theatre festival on the last weekend of August.
Oxegen (www.oxegen.ie) Three-day mega-music festival in mid-July at Punchestown Racecourse, featuring heavyweight pop, rock and dance acts.
Liffey Swim ( 833 2434) Five hundred lunatics swim 2.5km from Rory O’More Bridge to the Custom House in late July – one can’t but admire their steel will.
Dublin Theatre Festival ( 677 8439; www.dublintheatrefestival.com) Well-established international theatre festival held over a fortnight in late September.
Dublin Fringe Festival ( 872 9016; www.fringefest.com) Comedy and alternative fringe theatre from late September to early October.
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SLEEPING
If you’re looking for evidence of what happens when an economy goes into freefall, book a hotel room in Dublin. The ridiculously expensive room rates of the last decade – which made Dublin one of Europe’s most expensive cities to sleep in and rarely (if ever) offered value for money – have largely disappeared as hoteliers try to gauge an appropriate response to an economy in crisis and a pronounced dip in tourist numbers. Their answer (at the time of research, at least) was cheaper beds – as much as 40% cheaper in the middle and upper brackets – as they desperately seek to guarantee the future of their hotels, since many of them built or renovated during the boom at huge costs; although it is difficult to predict what will happen, it is clear that not everyone will survive the lean years.
Which isn’t bad news for you, as everyone competes for your euro and is willing to try virtually anything to make sure that you dribble on their pillows: there are so many deals on offer that room rates can vary wildly from day to day, never mind season to season. Always check online (see the Booking Services boxed text, Click here) and query the rack rate: discounts are more available now than ever before.
What hasn’t changed, though, is that Dublin gets busy in summer and it can be tough to get a central bed from around May to September. The south/north divide is also a constant, and you’re more likely to get better value for money north of the Liffey – a large-roomed comfortable B&B in the northside suburbs may cost you as little as €50 per person, but the owners of a small, mediocre guesthouse within walking distance of St Stephen’s Green won’t balk at asking €100 for a room barely bigger than a shoebox. Still, some of the city’s most characteristic properties are in the leafy suburbs directly south of the city centre, which is pretty accessible by cab or by public transportation (if you don’t fancy a longish walk).
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BLOOMSDAY
It’s 16 June. There’s a bunch of weirdos wandering around the city dressed in Edwardian gear and talking nonsense in dramatic tones. They’re not mad – at least not clinically – they’re only Bloomsdayers committed to commemorating James Joyce’s epic Ulysses, which anyone familiar with the book will tell you (and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve read the bloody thing) takes place over the course of one day. What they mightn’t be able to tell you is that Leopold Bloom’s latter-day odyssey takes place on 16 June 1904 because it was on that day that Joyce first ‘stepped out’ with Nora Barnacle, the woman he had met six days earlier and with whom he would spend the rest of his life. (When James’ father heard about this new love he commented that with a name like that she would surely stick to him.)
Although Ireland treated Joyce like a literary pornographer while he was alive, the country (and especially Dublin) can’t get enough of him today. Bloomsday is a slightly gimmicky and touristy phenomenon that appeals almost exclusively