What Dubliners Know: The Insider's Guide to Drinking, Music, and Skipping the Traps
There's tourist Dublin, and there's the Dublin people actually live in, and the gap between them is roughly the price of a pint. Ask any Dubliner where to drink, where to hear real music, and what to skip, and you'll get a sharp, opinionated, occasionally contradictory set of answers. Here's the distilled version — what locals know that the guidebooks gloss over.
1. The best pubs aren't where you think
Locals will tell you the same thing, fast and unanimous: do not drink in Temple Bar. Wander it, yes — it's a genuinely atmospheric cobbled quarter, and the live trad spilling out of doorways is real. But a pint there can hit €8 to €10 (around $9 to $11). Walk five minutes in any direction.
The Dubliner's roll call: Kehoe's on South Anne Street (snugs, Victorian woodwork, Guinness around €6). Grogan's on South William Street, the legendary artists' and writers' pub where you order a toastie with your pint and argue about everything. The Long Hall on South Great George's Street, chandeliers and antique clocks, possibly the most beautiful bar in the city. And The Stag's Head down a laneway off Dame Street — stained glass, a marble-topped bar, and a proper local crowd.
2. Where to actually hear trad music
Here's a thing visitors get wrong: the music in Temple Bar is often for the tourists. Loud, fine, but performance, not session. For the real thing, ask any Dubliner and they'll point you to The Cobblestone in Smithfield. Sessions from around 7PM, no cover, musicians gathered around a table playing for each other as much as for you. Arrive early, sit close, and don't talk over the slow airs.
For more, Hughes' Bar behind the Four Courts and O'Donoghue's on Merrion Row (where The Dubliners got their start) run sessions locals genuinely rate. The etiquette: listen. Clap at the end of a set, not the middle of a tune.
3. The Guinness debate is real and you must have an opinion
Every Dubliner believes Guinness tastes better in Dublin, and — annoyingly for cynics — they're basically right. It's fresher, the lines are cleaner, and the pour is taken as seriously as a Trappist ale in Bruges. A proper pint is poured in two parts: filled most of the way, left to settle for a minute or two, then topped off with that domed cream head. Do not rush the bartender. Asking 'is it ready yet?' marks you instantly.
Where's the best pint in town? Ask three Dubliners, get four answers. Common shouts: The Gravediggers (John Kavanagh's) by Glasnevin Cemetery, Mulligan's of Poolbeg Street, The Long Hall. The honest truth — it's hard to get a bad one. Skip the novelty of paying tourist prices for it in Temple Bar; have it in a back-street snug instead.
4. The Guinness Storehouse is worth it — with a caveat
Locals are split. The Guinness Storehouse at St. James's Gate is a seven-storey, pint-shaped museum ending in the Gravity Bar, a 360° glass room with the best free view in Dublin and a pint included with entry (around €26 to €30, roughly $28 to $32; book a timed slot online for the discount). It's slick, it's a touch corporate — but the Gravity Bar view genuinely delivers, and pouring your own pint at the academy is a laugh. Go once. Book ahead.
5. The free museums locals quietly love
Dublin's national museums are free year-round, and Dubliners use them as rainy-day refuges. The National Museum of Ireland — Archaeology (bog bodies, Celtic gold, the Tara Brooch). The National Gallery on Merrion Square (a Caravaggio, a whole Jack B. Yeats room). The Chester Beatty Library in the Dublin Castle grounds — one of Europe's finest manuscript collections, and weirdly underrated. All free. Skip the pricier private 'experiences' and spend your money on dinner instead.
6. Where Dubliners actually eat and drink
Tourists cluster on Dame Street. Locals are on Camden Street and Wexford Street — a strip of no-frills bars (Anseo, The Bernard Shaw spirit), good cheap food, and zero tourist markup. Also Capel Street north of the river, now pedestrianised and the most diverse food strip in the city — the closest Dublin gets to an Amsterdam eat-street: dumplings at Lucky Tortoise, Korean at Hilan. And Drury Street / Dame Lane for the better restaurants. Eat where the queue is Irish.
7. The day trips that earn the effort
Dublin's a great base, and locals will tell you the coast is the easy win. The DART train runs north to Howth — a fishing village with a clifftop loop walk (free, 2 to 3 hours) and seafood at the pier, about €3 each way with a Leap card. South, the DART hits Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey (Bono's village), and Killiney Hill, sometimes called 'Ireland's Bay of Naples'.
Further afield: Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains (monastic ruins and glacial lakes), and Newgrange in the Boyne Valley — a passage tomb 5,200 years old, older than the pyramids. Both are awkward by public transport; a guided coach (roughly €30 to €50) handles the logistics. The Cliffs of Moher make a long full day (about three hours each way) — book a coach and leave early, or skip it this trip.
8. The tourist traps to walk straight past
Dubliners will save you money fast: don't drink in Temple Bar. Don't pay for the leprechaun museum unless you're entertaining children. Don't take a taxi anywhere you could walk in twenty minutes — the city centre is tiny. And don't eat at the first place on a tourist street with a laminated photo menu; walk one block back.
9. The customs that mark you out
Rounds are sacred. Drinking in a group, you take your turn buying for everyone — try to slope off without buying yours and it'll be noticed. There's no table service in most traditional pubs; order and pay at the bar. Tipping isn't expected on drinks. And the self-deprecating, slagging humour — the gentle mockery between friends — is affection, not insult. Roll with it.
10. Get a Leap card on day one
Locals don't pay cash fares, and neither should you. A Leap Visitor Card covers unlimited buses, the Luas tram, and the DART (1/3/7-day options, roughly €8/€16/€32). Buy it at the airport, tap on every journey (and off, on DART and Luas). It's the single easiest money-saver in the city — far cheaper than cash fares and the smooth way to use the airport buses.
11. What visitors get most wrong
They over-plan. Dublin rewards wandering more than scheduling — half the joy is ducking into a pub you didn't research because the light looked good through the window. They also under-dress for rain (bring a waterproof, leave the umbrella; the wind eats umbrellas). And they treat the city as a checklist when locals treat it as a series of long, unhurried conversations. Slow down.
12. The thing nobody tells you
The weather is changeable, genuinely — you can get four seasons before lunch. Locals don't fight it; they carry a light rain jacket and get on with it — the same shrug-at-the-downpour attitude you'll find in famously rainy Bergen. A grey, drizzly Dublin is the real Dublin, the one in all the songs and stories. Don't wait for sun. It might not come, and you'd have wasted the whole trip waiting.
Learn this much and you'll drink better, spend less, hear real music, and pass — almost — for someone who knows the place. The rest you'll pick up in a snug somewhere, the way everyone does.
