One Day in Dublin / Baggot Street

Welcome to another edition of One Day in Dublin! It’s been quite a while since we had one of these, but I’m really excited to bring the series back. Completely selfishly, it lets me convince my friends to show me their neighborhoods, and I end up learning so many new things about the city. A few weeks ago, I asked my friend Ruth to show me around Merrion Square and Baggot Street, where she lives. We spent a Sunday afternoon wandering, chatting, and exploring.

Before we get started, a little piece of exciting news. You can wander around with Ruth, too! Well, it might be a little more structured than a wander. Ruth is kicking off her Lost Fashion History Tours this summer, with her first tour on June 27th. Without getting too gushy, Ruth is sweet, smart and so engaging. By day, she works at Brown Thomas on their online communications, and she never ever wears pants, only dresses. She knows such interesting tidbits about the city’s fashion history and I highly encourage you to take one of her tours. I’m hoping to make the tour on the 27th, so if you come, we could all hang out!

Now, down to brass tacks of our adventure around Merrion Square and Baggot Street.  On my way to meet Ruth, I walked by two things I love that I thought I would mention. First, Sweny’s Chemist, the pharmacy where Leopold Bloom bought his lemon soap in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Every day at 1pm, they have free readings. The second, is the weekend art show at Merrion Square Park. Every Saturday and Sunday, local artists set up their artwork hanging on the wrought iron gates and sell pieces to passers by. They’re there rain or shine, with awnings rigged up to protect the artwork from the elements.  Then I met Ruth at the top of Merrion Square! She wanted to show me Sybil Connolly’s former home and give me a little taste of what her Lost Fashion History tours will be like. Sybil was a haute couture dress designer who brought Irish materials like tweed and lace to the fashionably dressed in America. She even designed dresses for Jackie Kennedy and worked with Tiffany & Co.! Ruth’s little glimpse into her tours had me hooked. She’s such a good storyteller!  From Merrion Square, we headed down along the canal. There’s a lovely little path right next to the canal and on a Sunday afternoon it was quiet and peaceful. We saw lots of couples strolling romantically, dogs getting their daily walk, and even some local kids fishing!  There are a few houseboats on the canal and one is actually a restaurant! It’s a little floating restaurant called La Peniche. They take two cruises for dinner each night and one for lunch. I am so excited to do this. It’s gotten great reviews and would be amazing on a nice evening. They have a 9pm seating for dinner and with the sun setting so late here this would be a fun little adventure. It’s now high on my summer bucket list.  We stopped for a chat with Patrick (a little more on our local poet here). I still love that texture.

From the canal, we continued on toward Baggot Street. Fair warning, on a Sunday afternoon not everything is open on Baggot Street. We zipped past on our way to the National Print Museum, but here are just a few spots to try, as recommended by Ruth!

Cocu Kitchen / Baggot Wine Cavern / Keshk Cafe (Egyptian and Turkish food!) / Searson’s Pub

The architecture on Baggot Street is wonderful, but you do have to remember to look up!   The sun came out as we were walking, so we took a little wander through the area to the south of Baggot Street where all of the embassies are. The buildings are incredible and we stopped at every other doorway to snap photos. This purple one with matching wisteria was pretty dreamy.  You can see how we could have spent all day just ogling doors!  And also wrought-iron gates. I love that the one in the right photo above has a little plaque that says ‘Please Shut the Gate” on the wide open gate. So poetic.  Our final stop of the day was the National Print Museum, which was such a treat. I had been meaning to stop in for years, actually, but never quite made it all the way to Beggar’s Bush. I still need to go back and take one of their tours, but even without it I learned such interesting tidbits about the history of print in Dublin. When Eamonn de Valera and his compatriots wanted to print the proclamation of independence, they had to search all over the city for enough typeface to print the whole document. They cobbled together different bits and fonts but still only had enough for half of it, so they printed the top half and then rearranged the letters to print the bottom half. Isn’t that fascinating?  The Print Museum also runs workshops throughout the year, but the print workshops fill up so quickly.  And finally, we ended our day with a delicious late brunch in the Press Cafe at the museum. I wrote lots more about it right here.

I owe Ruth a big thank you for touring me around her neighborhood. What a fun afternoon!

As always, if you’re looking for even more information on what to do in neighborhoods around Dublin, check out Delightful Dublin! And don’t forget to check out the One Day in Dublin archives, too!