Dublin for families
Dublin Castle is the seat of Irish government for centuries, now a working state ceremonial complex you can walk into. St Patrick's Cathedral is the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland, and Jonathan Swift's parish.
Dublin for families with kids, in numbers
- Score for families
- 8.2 out of 10
- Picks on this page
- 36 places across 3 lists, led by Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, Leinster House
Questions families with kids ask about Dublin
-
Family-friendly
Dublin is family-friendly at 8.2/10 (see the TTDI Family-Friendliness Index). Phoenix Park covers 707 hectares with Dublin Zoo, fallow deer, and three playgrounds. LUAS trams are level-boarding and stroller-accessible. Rain is the main caveat, but free museums on Merrion and Kildare Streets handle wet afternoons from toddlers to teens.
Read the full answer → -
Is it safe?
We put Dublin at 6.8/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), and most visitors move around the city without incident. Violent crime against tourists is rare, and the real exposure is phone snatching and pickpocketing around Temple Bar and O'Connell Street, plus open drug use and late-night confrontations on the north quays and the Luas Red Line. Dial 112 or 999 in an emergency.
Read the full answer → -
What to pack
A proper rain jacket, not an umbrella, Dublin wind turns them inside out within minutes. Layers for 8-18°C swings in a single day, broken-in walking shoes for wet cobblestones around Trinity College, and a UK-style Type G plug adapter for Ireland's 230V outlets. Skip packing toiletries and cheap layers: Penneys on O'Connell Street sells them for less than airport shops charge.
Read the full answer → -
Getting around
Walk for most of the city center: it's compact enough that Temple Bar to St Stephen's Green takes ten minutes on foot. Luas tram and Dublin Bus cover anything beyond walking range; load a Leap Card at any newsagent for capped fares. Free Now or Bolt handle late nights. Skip the rental car entirely.
Read the full answer → -
Best time to visit
Go in late May, June, or September. June gives Dublin about 17 hours of daylight and highs near 19°C, and September stays almost as warm with fewer people and cheaper rooms than July and August. Avoid St Patrick's week in March, when hotel rates jump, and give November to February a miss as well: the sun sets shortly after 4pm in December.
Read the full answer →
Curated for families with kids
-
Must-see attractions
Dublin's must-sees are mostly buildings rather than attractions built for visitors, and their dates span a long stretch: Christ Church Cathedral dates to 1031, St Patrick's Cathedral to 1191, and Dublin Castle to 1204, while at the other end sit the Spire of Dublin, from 2003, and the cable-stayed Samuel Beckett Bridge, from 2009. In between are the building that houses the parliament of Ireland, a major court complex, the country's largest non-denominational cemetery, a footbridge over the River Liffey, and two theatres that still put on shows at night. This list is for the visitor who wants the city's working spine, not a checklist of photo stops. Several of these places keep tight or split hours, and Sunday in particular can catch you out, so we give the opening times wherever the record has them. Read the times before you set the route. Several places on this list can't be walked into on a whim, and a planned day here beats an improvised one.
See the picks → -
Best free attractions
Dublin's best free hours are spent outdoors, on grass and gravel that has been public for a very long time. The city is unusually well-supplied with squares, parks, and botanical grounds: a legacy of Georgian planning that left the southside laced with railed gardens, and of nineteenth-century civic ambition that gave the north its bigger green rooms. This list is twelve of them, ranked by how much they reward a walk-in visitor with nothing to spend. Some are enormous, working parks with cricket pitches and glasshouses; others are pocket squares you would miss if you were not looking for the gate. All of them are inside Dublin, all of them are free, and all of them are the kind of place a local goes when the pub is too loud and the museum queue is too long. Bring a coat. The weather is the price of entry, and the light (when it comes) is the reason to stay.
See the picks → -
Best museums
Dublin's museums are defined by their national institutions, and the oldest among them still carry the most weight. The National Gallery of Ireland dates from 1854, the National Library of Ireland from 1877, and the Royal Hibernian Academy, which is an art school, museum and society at once, from 1823. Kilmainham Gaol is a former prison and a National monument of Ireland, and the Chester Beatty Library sits inside Dublin Castle. Two picks are further out: the James Joyce Tower and Museum on Sandycove Point and the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Military Road. We put this list together for travellers who would trade a few hours of shopping for galleries, reading rooms and cells, and for families who want something lighter, like Dublinia or the folk museum on Jervis Street. Check opening times before you go, because Saturdays are short at the library, which closes at 12:45, and IMMA lists no Monday hours.
See the picks →