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DUBLIN IS A small enough city, and therein lies a lot of its charm. No matter where you’re located in the city it’s easy to get around so a spontaneous trip somewhere cool is never too far away.
There are loads of hidden gems around the city and we’ve rounded up some of the best for you. Let us know in the comments below if you know of any more to share with us.
Now, head off into the great blue yonder.
The Blessington Street Basin is a reservoir in Dublin 7 built in 1810 and later opened as a public park. In 1991 it underwent a massive refurbishment and is now just the place to head to for a city picnic.
Getting there on public transport: 122/140/83A/40 all stop within walking distance.
Take the Dart to Portmarnock and walk the strand from there to Malahide – it’s about a 5km walk. When you get to Malahide village you can reward yourself with a delicious lunch in one of its many cafés.
You could even head to the castle and have a wander around the gardens there – if the legs aren’t walked off you yet.
Getting there on public transport: Dart from city centre to Portmarnock station.
You can avail of free Office of Public Works (OPW) tours on Fridays and Sundays at the abandoned Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park. It was built in 1735 and occupied by the British until 1922.
And while you’re there, sure, you could go check out the wild deer, or the zoo, or rent bikes… The park is your oyster.
Getting there on public transport: 37/39/39A will all drop you near to the Phoenix Park.
The hungry tree is exactly what it says on the tin – a tree that is in the process of consuming a wrought iron park bench. It’s located in a park in King’s Inns on Constitution Hill, and while you’re in the area you could have lunch in one of the many tasty, trendy cafés on Capel Street.
Getting there on public transport: 140/40 will drop you nearby
There is a ton to do in Marino – in fact you might not have time for it all. First head to the Casino, one of the finest neo-classical buildings in Europe, and spend some time checking out all the architectural tricks and the tunnels underneath.
Then head to Marino village itself and check out Bram Stoker’s house there. You can visit the Bram Stoker museum nearby and have coffee or lunch in Bram’s café too.
Fang-tastic.
Getting there on public transport: 15/123 bring you to Marino
Another way to see Dublin is to get away from dry land altogether. You can kayak down the Liffey and see all the famous landmarks from the water. It takes about two hours to do a tour down the Liffey and you’ll pass by the Four Courts, the Custom House and a lot of bridges.
Getting there on public transport: Any bus, Dart, Luas or train to the city centre.
The stairs in the O’Connell Tower in Glasnevin cemetery were blown up by Loyalists in 1971 – but they’ve recently been restored and you can climb to the top of the tower. From there, on a clear day you can see three counties (Dublin, Meath and Louth).
While you’re out there you may as well take a cemetery tour and you can always rest your legs with a drink in the Gravediggers pub nearby.
Getting there on public transport: 9/40/140 will drop you very close by.
We don’t want to leave out your four-legged friends out of your day trips, so why not head to Ardgillan Castle and pop into the dog café there. There are treats for dogs and humans alike and loads of room for roaming.
Getting there on public transport: Train to Balbriggan station, then walk to the Lady’s Bridge on the Skerries road and access the Castle from there.
Corkagh Park is a 300 acre park in Clondalkin and comprises Corkagh House and rose garden, a playground, a fishery and the pièce de résistance - the pet farm.
Whether you’re big or little, you’ll appreciate heading to the pet farm and checking out the hens, geese, goats and all the other farm animals hanging around.
Getting there on public transport: 13/68/69 will get you there.
If you’re setting off on a spontaneous day trip around Dublin, remember your Leap Card. With auto top up, you never need worry about being out of money, and with Leap 90 you can save €1 if you take two or more trips within 90 minutes. Or if you’re out for the day, the price is automatically capped. Head over to Leap Card to find out more.
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Cut to welfare when caught would also be good!
@Paul: What a stupid comment .
Who said it was only people on welfare dumping their s..t around the place.
@Paul: had to make the first comment no matter how stupid it sounded. Congratulations
@Paul: I doubt all those who dump their own rubbish are on welfare.
You also have to go after those who pay peanuts to people to clear out gardens etc. This material is only going to end up in one place.
@Paul: Say your correct with just the welfare class dumping. What’s the solution for those that can’t afford the bin charges? Live with the build up of rubbish and rats or find a way to rid the rubbish!
What has FF FG LIEBOUR done with the USC, PROPERTY TAX? We get zilch. Banks get all. I would suggest your suggestion of taking money from those struggling already will bring about the result a person like you fears. Carful what you wish for ;)
@Willy Malone: ‘we get zilch’ patently false.
@Michael Maher: Guaranteed majority are welfare recipients (spongers)
@Michael Maher: well they are hardly going to pay a fine if they are on the welfare so target the welfare. Like so fines that go unpaid they know the prisons will only hold on to them for an hour or too in leiu
@Willy Malone: who gets zilch??? Those who actively sponge the welfare and bleed it dry and not those genuinely on it get their arses wiped for them by the state. Drive up around shancastle or green fort by liffey Valley. Same crowd just send the kids to rhe field with rubbish to burn knowing Dam well the council will clean it up while the decent people in the area suffer living in a tip
@Gerard Burke: Its the Irish people that are wrong there is a lot of filthy people in all walks of life. Those who buy the most dump the most legal or illegal.Just like our lovely countryside is being destroyed by ignorant urban based drivers who throw their trash out the windows of their cars.
@Gerard Burke: Might be but not them all there is a lot more people working than on welfare.
It’s their culture boss
@Tony Maguire: how is this going to work – a quadcopter drone can only fly for 20 minutes at a time. who is going to fly them?
The government brought this dumping on us by give the bin companies carte blanche… Now huge swathes of people across the country will have to find ways of ridding their rubbish. Privatisation, the FF FG LIEBOUR way has detrimental consequences on our countryside and Drones ain’t gonna fix it.. Naughton you really should not be in government…
@Willy Malone: Of course, no-one ever dumped or littered before private bin companies. The country was spotless in the 80s and 90s…
Big brother FG won’t give anything for LPT like bin service etc
@Willy Malone: you do know that it was county councils that privatised bin collection, not central government.
@Willy Malone: Silly comment. You are making excuses for the rat bags that dump their rubbish all over the place. Its not the governments, council or anyone else’s fault. These people are pure lazy. If they can afford a car or van to bring their rubbish to a secluded area why cant they pay for their bins? But hey according to you its somebody else’s fault.
@Coco86: spending €2m euro on drones and operators is a bit far fetched. Even with evidence it’s hard to get a conviction.
@George Salter: i challenge anyone to try get any bin company to pick up 3 full black bags.
i helped clean up a rental property and we had 3 large black bags to get rid of phoned every company servicing the area. green star. thorntons and panda. none will pick up a once off collection, must have a contract which has standing charge and you must leave a deposit. i asked they said i would have to take 3 bins green brown and general bin fill the general rubbish which doesn’t fit 3 bags so i would have to be there when they arrive to ask to refill the general bin for the second time and then phone them back and cancel the contract and pay the years standing charge. Crazy i know i could go to the dump. but i didn’t want the smelly dirt bags in my car
@David Cullen: True. But I fail to see how this supports or refutes my comment above?
@David Cullen: Aren’t there small skips you can hire on a once-off basis?
When they are caught a years worth of community service cleaning up rubbish would sort this out fairly lively
@Shane Carroll: Great idea, for low impact crimes have those clean up the place too.
Drones my arse, there is a site near me where every month the council collects burnt out cars , burnt out caravans and the rubbish that is stacked on the street just outside the site. The rubbish is stacked under the Garda CCTV camera pole. what more do they want ?
@Ireland Just shoot me: More cameras and more staff to look at them. Blurry ones will suffice.
Hillarious and ludicrous at the same time, are they seriously suggesting €2M will help tackle this scourge, I can just picture the scene, some clown hiding in dark woods trying to use a drone. Just saw the 2 ministers on six one, god almighty is this really the best government has to offer, they appeared to be on a canvassing tour. Buffoons, completely out of their depth
I’d love to know what the return on investment is. Most people caught never get prosecuted. 2m would go a long way to hire people to clean the place up.
quad/octo copter drones with flashing lights are not exactly covert, they’re actually very noisy.
how are they gonna catch anyone? fly tipping is done mostly at night. will they have night vision cameras? will they have a docking station to recharge?
and whats all that satellite jazz? did we finally manage to put a massey ferguson up in space while my back was turned?
what kind of stupidity is that welfare recipients are not the only people dumping They are not dumping waste into rivers that result in huge fish kills. plastics into our oceans or farm waste like the yards of thick black plastic you find blown up the mountains from nearby farms. I was recently on the knockmealdown mountains and somebody tipped a trailer of about 40 tyres on the mountain side.
@Ireland Just shoot me: and font forget the 40 odd urban councils pumping raw sewage into the watercourses up and down the country…..who’s sh!t is that! If you’re going to blatantly try and point the finger at one community, list them all! Our roadsides are full of litter thrown from cars and other vehicles, our beaches are littered every fine summers days with nappies, dog sh!t and even human sh!t! The people who illegally dump are nothing but filthy s€um no matter who they are. Blaming bin charges is one of the pathetic excuses I see on every story regarding it, I grew up in the early 80′s and our bog road was the local dump! There were no bin charges back then and yet people dumped illegally…..dirt breeds dirt and we still have plenty of dirt dumping!
Prosecute the livin jaysus out of the ones they catch, a clip on the ear doesn’t work as a deterrent, minimum €1000.00 fine first offence & yeah, taken out of welfare if need by.
@Rodger 5: The article seems to be saying that people are paying unlicensed operators to take their rubbish away and they’re just dumping it. Individuals aren’t doing this. They’re dumping several bags at once, and ripping people off instead of the service they claimed to provide.
No doubt they’ll waste 50% of The announced budget on Box Ticking red tape by unaccountable civil servants
@Randal McNally: No, they won’t. The staff are already there and paid for. But, sure, why not throw in an uninformed comment for the craic.
Name & Shame the S(um won’t make a difference. It only advertise how easy you can get away with it. I work in a Ind Est in Tallaght. It’s an embarrassment. A company in the Ind Est wittiness this act. When confronting & alerting the Guards. The response was “ Call them, We Don’t Care”.
Big brother FG
Waste Management is too important to be left to the Private Sector!
They are incapable of managing it at a societal level, the result is a risk to public health!
Big brother FG
Why? What is Joan Burton going to do about it?
@Father Hody Commody: Was about to congratulate her for finally coming in useful for something..
@Vigo the Carpathian: Hey Vigo, you’re on the SyFy channel!
Maybe if they made rubbish disposal more affordable for people they wouldn’t need drones.
The majority of dumping is at night.. so how will drones help then.. daft idea..and another waste of money.
A go pro camera doesnt make any noise
Gosh!
Create Open Data on Litter / Dumping / plastic pollution anywhere @ OpenLitterMap.com and “mine” Littercoin
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