| Gothic Tourism in Dublin |
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| Written by i j |
| Tuesday, 30 November 2010 17:44 |
Well, as some of you might already know, i love to travel, and while I travel I love to search for those gothic places (or shops) that are basically everywhere but usually far from touristic areas… today we talk about…
In case anyone doesn’t know it already, Dublin is the capital of Ireland (recently famous for their European rescue) and they speak English, I have been 3 times to Dublin, the first one was in a bushiness travel, the second 2 were during vacations and I’m not sure when I’m going to find time for going back to Dublin again… but sincerely it’s not for their gothic culture which it’s… not really developed (nothing to do with Berlin… you can find some information about Berlin in HERE). But don’t desperate, while you wont find many gothic places “per se” you still will find a lot of places that you will enjoy a lot… they are not aimed at gothic people but sincerely in some instances it seems so. But let’s start from the beginning… “how to get to Dublin”. Reaching Dublin is easy and cheap, you just need to pick a Ryan air plane, Ryan air company is based in Ireland and Dublin is probably their more important airport, so you shouldn’t have any problem on finding a cheap flight to Dublin from basically anywhere in Europe. If you are not from Europe, Dublin is still a capital so you’ll do well in looking in international flight companies and check what’s available, if that’s not an option either, you’ll do well in check if you can get to London, and then from London to Dublin (London and Dublin are decently close and they have pretty decent communications both by air and sea). Once you get there you’ll want to get a room for sleeping, while hotels are not specially cheap they aren’t that expensive either… and that was before the crisis, I assume that nowadays it must be cheaper… I use to go to “fleet street hotel” with is a hotel with tons of rooms that “are not that bad” but “not that good either”… The really good new is that it’s near to the trinity college, which is just in the centre of the city so it’s a perfect location for moving around the city and it’s the perfect room if you don’t intend to spend too much time in there. Living in there is “cheap” compared to what it cost to live in Spain (and Spain is considered cheap in terms of Europe so I bet that Ireland should be considered as cheap for most of people reading this), the daytime is divided in European terms… so you have a heavy breackfast pretty soon in the morning, then you have lunch about 1 PM and then you have something light for dinner about at 9 PM although it you dinner earlier you can get special offers. You can have lunch or diner for about 10€ each in good quality fast food restaurants (burgers, sandwiches, barbeque ribs…) and for having lunch you will have at your disposal what it’s called “soup of the day” that used to be incredibly tasty and comes with bread and butter that it’s usually enough for having lunch and it’s cheaper than 10€ each. You also can get (and you should at least once) some traditional Irish food for about 20-25€ person or some more specific food like Japanese food for about 30-35€ person. You can also find cheaper than 10€ food in places like McDonnalds and the like. There is also a chance of getting real cheap and real good quality food in what its called “early bird”, from 5 to 7 PM you can get special offers at restaurants and you’ll be able to eat really well for real cheap prices, although that require invest some time searching for those special offers around. Drinking in Spanish terms is like someone stealing your wallet, alcoholic drinks (Except beer) is terribly expensive and they contain very little alcohol… Of course being Spanish that’s my impression, but I’m sure that most European people will agree that’s the European standard out of Spain… I don’t know the situation in United states… But ehi, If you want to drink cheap…. Come to Spain not to Ireland… Beer it’s fairly cheap, a pint (half a litter) cost about 4.5€-5€ and you have plenty of beers to chose from. Pubs are great, most of them have life music in them… and sincerely street musicians are awesome, and those are the ones that didn’t got a contract for playing inside… believe me when I tell you that Irish musicians are incredible good. But ehi, enough of normal tourism, lets talk about something a little bit more goth. Dublin is a terribly touristic city, it’s full of places to visit starting from the national museums (that are all free to enter) and then going to places like the Guinness storehouse, jameson, Dublinia, Dublin Castle… and a large list in which I’m not going to enter because I wouldn’t be able to exit from it… you should pick what it’s called “Dublin pass” which allow you to enter once a day to most tourist attractions of Dublin. In gothic friendly tourist attractions we can find a lot of interesting stuff: Kilmanhaim Gaol This is my favorite place in Dublin, I already visited it in my previous trip but didn´t wrote about this place yet, I wrote and article for this place alone, you can read about this place in detail HERE.
Glasnevin Cemetery
This is the biggest cemetery in Ireland and it’s a lovely place for meditating and thinking on yourself, if you can you should visit it in a sunny day, you don’t have it yet, but I plan to create a full article about his place soon.
Wax Museum +
A wax museum that it’s just behind the national bank (in front of the trinity college), I had never been before in a wax museum but I liked it… It wasn’t anything really spectacular but it’s interesting, It has a few “horror rooms” that are pretty cool.
Christ church y St Patrick`s cathedral
They are a really beautiful church and a cathedral
St Patricks have a cemetery in one of their sides but it’s not possible to visit it, even then you can do a really cool photos in the inside.
Christ Church have a lovely catacombs that can be visited, unluckily (and although it might seem impossible) they wasted half of the catacombs by placing a shop and a coffee in there… although… well, it’s a really unique place for drinking something…
Famine statues
In the street that it’s at the side of the river liffey there are some statues called “famine statues” that remembers the years of famine in Ireland, enough to say that in 5 years Ireland comes from 10 million people to almost 4 (a lot died of famine and the rest emigrated to the united states).
Those statues are pretty realistic and there is a hidden beauty in them…
The Horror tour
I didn’t had time for getting in there but it’s possible to get a trip in a bus that will get us to the nocturnal streets of Dublin while they tell horror stories, It’s recommended to have a high English language knowledge for understanding what are they saying although it seems that it’s not needed for getting scared.
That’s all the places I found that could eb interesting in gothic terms, they aren´t many but if you like to do some tourism, you will have no problem on keeping yourself entertained.
Talking about shops… I went there without knowing any and although I did my best efforts on finding them I didn’t found many:
Asha
You’ll be able to find it in the last floor of St Sthephen Shopping center, It’s a standard gothic shop, you’ll be able to find leather trousers, dresses, corsets, leather bracers, makeup… the prices are quite “normal” for being gothic material (so expensive).
Baby doll
Youll find it in Crow Street (near templebar) they sell gothic corsets and “pinup” or even Lolita clothes, it’s really recommended because their prices where pretty decent and the quality was quite high.
“can’t remember the name”
But was located in Anglesea Street, they have a lot got gothic and punk clothes, ot was pretty expensive though.
Miss Fantasía
You´´ find it in South William Street, and it’s one of those places that if you look at their walls and don’t know what you are going to find inside… then you shouldn’t get in, it’s a fetish sex shop, as normal in this places it’s terribly expensive although there are great latex and vinyl corsets… as well as other toys…
Basic instincts
You´ll find it in Eustace Street (near templebar… everything is near Templebar) it’s another shop sister of the above one but they also have a really cool collection of venetian masks… they are terribly expensive… but one of my lost dreams is to organize a mask party and those masks where perfect for that… they also have capes that would suit most of my favorites gothic looks.
And lastly but not least important… Gothic pubs…
¡¡Didn’t found any!! Yeah I have to admit that I let myself to go to the traditional Dublin night (traditional live music) but even then I kept an eye open for gothic pubs and didn’t saw any.
I think that there shouldn’t be many (if any) in the city center, maybe you can find some in the periphery, after my arrival I took a look to the internet searching for any and I found a list of places, maybe some of you are luckier than me and find them…
The Neptune (basement of the Flowing Tide) on Abbey St, Dublin 1 (has a jukebox) Bruxelles off Grafton St, Dublin 2 (Downstairs metal one side, general on the other) The Porterhouse on Parliament St, Dublin 2 Brogans on Dame St, (downstairs has a jukebox) The Oak on Dame St, Dublin 2 The Foggy Dew on Dame St. Dublin 2 The Longstone Pearse St. Dublin 2 Eamon Dorans Crown Alley, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 Hogans South Great George's St, Dublin 2 Grogans South William St., Dublin 2 The Stag's Head in Dame Court (off Dame Street) International Bar has comedy nights from time to time. Anseo on Camden Street Carnival on Wexford Street. Studenty - music - Ska, Indie, Electro and even some Goth. Camden Palace Wexford St, nice pool hall upstairs. Full bar, American tables, Bar plays music usually, can be anything from Pixies to DJ Shadow
And that’s all, I don’t want to leave without saying again that please, send me your gothic reviews of gothic places around the world, I pretend to create a guide of gothic places to visit and although I try to travel as much as possible it’s impossible that I can do this on my own, you can talk about your home town or about any other place you visited in the past, either a city or just a single place.
Send your reviews to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I will publish them (with the author name, of course).
Comments (3)
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 02 December 2010 18:34 |
did you ever try typing "goth clubs dublin ireland" into google
if you had you would have seen the first result would have been
http://dominion.gothic.ie/
as weve been around for 12 years and still going
next time come see us, also for a tourist guide we have the helpfull
http://dominion.gothic.ie/guide/
pages