What's a good 3-day itinerary for Dublin?

Day 1 stays south of the Liffey, where most of what first-timers want sits within a 20-minute walk. Trinity College at 8:30am — the cobblestones are damp, the tour groups haven't arrived, and you can walk into the Book of Kells exhibition before the queue wraps down College Green. The Long Room is worth the €18 entry on its own; the manuscript itself is a bonus. From there, head through campus to Grafton Street. Coffee at Bewley's Oriental Café, where stained glass throws coloured light across marble tabletops and the air is heavy with roasting beans. Lunch at Coppinger Row off South William Street — small plates around €10, one of the few terraces in the city centre that actually catches afternoon sun. Cut through St Stephen's Green to the National Gallery on Merrion Square West. Free entry. The Caravaggio — The Taking of Christ, found in a Jesuit dining room in 1990 — is reason enough to go. Dinner at Etto on Merrion Row, two minutes away: Italian-leaning, seasonal, roughly €40 with wine. Book ahead.

Day 2 moves west into medieval Dublin. Dublin Castle at 9am — the state apartments are the draw; the exterior tends to disappoint people expecting battlements and arrow slits. Worth noting: the Chester Beatty Library sits in the castle grounds and is, to be fair, among the finest small museums in Europe. Illuminated Qurans, Japanese woodblock prints, Ethiopian biblical manuscripts. Free, and ninety minutes covers it well. Walk ten minutes southwest through the Liberties to The Fumbally on Fumbally Lane for lunch — grain bowls around €14, the room thick with the smell of sourdough and cardamom. Kilmainham Gaol at 2:30pm. Pre-book online or you likely won't get in; slots sell out days ahead. The guided tour takes an hour, and even in June the damp cold of those stone cells gets into your bones. Bring a layer. The Guinness Storehouse is a 12-minute walk south — €26 for the self-guided tour and a pint at the Gravity Bar on the seventh floor, which has the best rooftop view in Dublin. Dinner: L. Mulligan Grocer in Stoneybatter. Craft beer, bone marrow on toast, about €35 a head.

Day 3 heads north. Start at the Hugh Lane Gallery on Parnell Square — free, small, and it holds Francis Bacon's entire reconstructed London studio, which is stranger and more absorbing than it sounds. Paint-spattered walls, crushed tubes, torn photographs pinned to every surface. By 11am, walk to Connolly Station and take the DART to Howth — about 25 minutes along the coast. You can feel the temperature drop and the salt thicken in the air as the train pulls into the harbour town. The cliff walk loop takes roughly two hours. Grass and mud underfoot, wind pushing at your jacket, the Irish Sea a flat grey below, Ireland's Eye sitting offshore. Lunch at Octopussy's on Howth harbour: seafood tapas, grilled prawns, crab claws, chowder, eaten on picnic benches facing the fishing boats. Budget around €18-22. If it's packed, the chipper stalls on the West Pier do fresh cod and chips for €10-12. Take the DART back to the city by 3pm.

For the last evening, walk through Temple Bar for the painted pub fronts and the trad sessions spilling through open doors — fiddle, bodhrán, tin whistle, the sound carrying down the cobblestones. But eat elsewhere. Temple Bar restaurant prices run 30-40% above the rest of the city for no better cooking. The Stag's Head on Dame Court, five minutes south, is one of the last proper Victorian pubs in Dublin: stained glass, dark wood, brass taps, a pint of Guinness for about €6.50 instead of the €8 you'd pay around the corner. Dinner at Delahunt on Camden Street — the early bird menu runs about €38 for three courses in a converted Victorian grocery, and the room is small enough that you hear the plates leave the pass. Three days, three directions, no ground covered twice. Expect rain on at least one of them — Dublin currently sits around 15°C and overcast, so a packable rain jacket earns its luggage space every day you're here.