I’ve been invited to the Dublin area for professional reasons. After I’ve fulfilled my professional obligations, I’ll have about 5 days to travel/visit. Accomodations are provided so I don’t have to worry about hotels.
Beside the Book of Kells, what do you recommend seeing/ visiting, things to do, walks to take?
Any special restaurant/pub/dish to try?
I don’t like Guinness but are there other drinks to try?
Any special bookstore? Things to buy?
Chain restaurants to avoid/that can be trusted in a pinch?
What about closing times (I was in an English town last summer where everything closed at 4 or 4:30!)
Murphy’s stout is a bit more mellow in taste than Guinness, but if you don’t want stout at all, or even if you do, I loved Bulmer’s cider.
Things to see do–Guinness factory still would be fun and has a great view across the city, Kilmainem Gaol is an amazing historic experience I highly recommend. Walking from Trinity across the bridge up O’Connell Street to Parnell Square, lots of historic things to see. We liked the Irish Writers Museum on the other side of the square, and the Remembrance Garden is beautiful. Walks along the Liffey are another idea. Temple Bar is another area to walk around, also my favorite park–St. Stephens Green.
If you’re into Irish lit, I’m sure there are maps to show you Leopold Bloom’s walks around Dublin from Ulysses. (I did this many years ago, but not recent enough to give you links).
The Celt for Irish music–absolutely a ton of fun!
http://www.thecelt.ie/
We didn’t have any issues with early closings.
Thank you so very much!! 
We went to Ireland two years ago after my son finished his study abroad there. Loved it! The first thing I would suggest is the Free Walking tour of Dublin. That will give you a great overview of the area. The guide we had was terrific. I was surprised at the diversity on that tour, all ages, all kinds of people. We liked it so much that we also did similar tours in Edinburgh and London. http://www.newdublintours.com/ I think we paid about $20 /each. We almost did the pub crawl with them too - they go from bar to bar and all of the places have music. I’m not a drinker and it appealed to me!
We also visited http://www.brazenhead.com/, which was a block from where we were staying. They have a cool evening of food and storytelling that we also did. This would also be fun for a single person and a good way to meet other people. You’re seated at a table for ten, and after a short while, everyone knows everyone. http://www.brazenhead.com/story-telling/index.php We also did a separate tour of the prison and combined that with a visit to the Guinness factory/museum. I really don’t like Guinness, but the view from the top at the end was good.
We enjoyed the book of Kells, but my tip is to go at the end of the day. Check their closing time. We did that and got in for half price. No lines either. I loved wandering around Trinity College too!
Take the train to Belfast and do a Black taxi tour.https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g186470-d565147-Reviews-Official_Belfast_Black_Taxi_Tours-Belfast_Northern_Ireland.html I think that’s the one we did. Alternatively, you could just walk around and see the city. We toured city hall.
Something that helped me put the country into perspective was realizing that it’s about the same size as Indiana. It’s really not that hard to criss cross the country if you want to see something on the other side. The trains are really nice too. We used them to go up to Belfast and also took them down the coast to Bray. We had a little more time than you and rented a car to go down to Cork and then over to the Ring of Kerry. The Ring of Kerry was just beautiful.
My two most used items when we were there were my walking shoes and my raincoat. There was one day it didn’t mist or rain and we walked miles every day.
^I think when my S was there for just a few days a couple years ago, he and friends took a bus trip from Dublin to the West coast to see the Cliffs of Mohr and then back again in the same day (He’d been there before, but his friends had not). Like @walkinghome says, it’s just not that big a country.
While it may not be that big of a country, if you’re renting a car and driving, it takes a LONG time to get from one side of the country to another due to the narrow winding roads. Much longer than if you were driving across Indiana. So if you want to do something away from Dublin (which I’d also highly recommend getting out to the rural Irish countryside), then you will need to take transportation into consideration if you are not taking a train and are perhaps just renting a car for the day (which is only for the brave of heart in Ireland).
I wasn’t impressed with the Book of Kells. The Guiness tour would be better if you actually like stout because you have a few chances to taste it. It’s not a real factory tour, the factory is across the street, but it’s more an illustration of how things are made, history, etc.
You should look into taking a tour of Newgrange which is about an hour north. It dates from 3500 BC, well before the Celts first landed in Ireland. I’m sure there are bus tours that take you up for the day and include admission to the big mounds of Newgrange and Knowth.
There are other prehistoric monuments in County Dublin (one is in an animal enclosure at the zoo!):
Wow thank you
To reiterate the driving, Ireland is one country among a handful or so across the globe where you are required to purchase their car rental insurance before they allow you to leave the lot… the other countries being Jamaica, Israel, and Northern Ireland (some cards require it for Italy, Australia and New Zealand). An easy way to pick out rental cars is to look at the tires. If you see a zip tie through the wheel and hubcap, that’s the rental car company’s way of hanging onto as many hubcaps as possible as so many people who are not used to driving in Ireland hit the curbs there. Unless you have a week or more to drive across the countryside, though, there’s really no reason to rent a car.
That insurance requirement was a shock to us! We spent a long time in the rental agency renegotiating and considering an on the spot switch to buses and trains (I did NOT think that was a good idea) before the agency came up with some discounts, airline or AAA or both, I forget, to bring the price down somewhat. We’d flown all night and were driving across the country that day, so it was not a good moment!
But more to the point, I agree with @teriwtt that a car would be more of a liability than an asset if you’re based in Dublin. The buses and trains can get you out in the country, even across to the West Coast for a day trip, as i mentioned above.
I think I’ll stick to train and buses. I’m sure there’s enough to do, and I’ll just go where trains/buses go!
It’s the first time I’m going to Ireland so I hope I won’t run out of places to go/rhings to do by sticking to public transportation.
Based on what you said above (taking good notes) I should not be bored 
I think I actually learned about it on CC! You obviously missed that thread 
We had pre-booked our car through AAA, so it was taken care of when we arrived to pick up our car (which wasn’t until after we’d spent three days in Dublin and were ready to head up to Northern Ireland for the first part of the road trip).
5 days is probably too long for Dublin. If you don’t want to drive (although the roads have gotten a lot better lately thanks to the EU!), you could always fly to Kerry for under Euro 100). The Ring of Kerry is beautiful!
I’ll look it up, than you !
I was thinking 3 days in Dublin and 2 Day trips, does that sound reasonable ?
We were only in Dublin for two days, but we took a short train ride out to Malahide Castle. Its just outside Dublin. It was beautiful.
By the way, Ireland was one of my favorite places on our trip to Europe last summer. The people were nice and friendly, and I LOVE their accents. They also have cool double-decker buses that are fun to ride in, and can be quite an experience too.
@teriwtt --I might have been the one that posted it! It’s been a while since we went.
@MYOS1634 --that sounds perfectly reasonable.
Dublin has HOHO (hop on, hop off) buses that are a great way to get an overview of the city. If you don’t like Guinness, the Jameson Distillery is a fun alternative and a nice spot for Irish coffee. Everyone has given you excellent suggestions, but if you get a chance and have nice weather, hop the train to Galway, which is a vibrant coastal city, then catch a short flight to the Aran Islands.
We LOVED the Aran Islands! One of my favorite spots.
D2 returned from Dublin last week. She and her friends stayed 5 nights in Dublin. 3 days they did day trips.