Experience Dublin from all sorts of new angles

Recent additions to its impressive list of tours offer the chance to see the sights from a series of new angles and to really get under the skin of this unique and dynamic city.

A new Land & Sea initiative combines two of Dublin’s best-loved tourist activities, the award- winning Dublin Bus Hop on Hop off tour and a 75-minute cruise on the superb MV St Bridget.

The ticket gives visitors the chance to experience the best of the city’s attractions as well as the beauty of its coastline.

Eugene Garrihy, owner of Dublin Bay Cruises, explains: “Dublin is a city on the edge of nature and now for the first time, with one ticket, visitors will be able see the city sights and to relax on a cruise and view Dublin’s beautiful bay and River Liffey as well as its many fishing villages, islands and wildlife.”

Brand new bus tours include the Traditional Irish Storytelling Tour, a quirky tour of Dublin in a double-decker bus turned old-Irish pub, which transports travellers on a round trip from the city centre to the coast and back again.

Passengers are joined by a ‘seanchai’ – a storyteller – who recounts tales of Ireland’s history, mystery and mythology and shares fables of an enchanted land inhabited by fairies, giants, mermen and leprechauns.

For something a little more edgy, the Gravedigger Bus Tour – recently voted “the most unique experience in world” – takes passengers on a journey into Dublin’s spooky past.

Visiting some of the lesser known parts of the city, the tour’s ‘plague infested’ guides give a ghoulish and highly entertaining account of the darker side of Dublin’s history complete with hideous crimes, haunted buildings, plagues and body snatching.

A ticket for the Gravedigger Bus Tour also covers a free Haunted History Walking Tour through the eerie, cobblestoned streets of old-town Dublin. Seeking out the city’s most haunted sites, and covering some of the more gruesome aspects of its history, the 45-minute tour takes a more serious approach to Dublin’s paranormal activity.

The award-winning Little Museum of Dublin has also launched a new walking tour, which tells the story of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin’s city centre, a square which has been at the centre of Irish history for hundreds of years.

Full of anecdotes and humour the Green Mile tour uncovers the central role the square has played in Irish history: James Joyce studied on the south side of the Green and the Free State Constitution was drafted at the Shelbourne Hotel, which overlooks it.