KEY POINTS:
Poetry and Guinness are the lifeblood of Dubliners. The stuff flows thick in their veins.
Perhaps the Guinness is not all that thick in the veins of the thousands of Poles and Spaniards staffing the city's bars but Dublin's soul will not be denied.
For while Dublin is
unquestionably "new Europe" - the capital of a nation out of which immigrants once poured, now itself colonised - there's still no escaping this city's heritage.
Dublin is a city to be explored on foot, for the inky pints of Guinness, the brick homes of poets past and the remembrances of the Easter Uprising are to be found in her byways and lanes.
There is high life here, to be sure, but I'm after a drop of old Dublin, not the cafe and clubbing blandishments of the Celtic Tiger.
But because I have a 21st century attention span and prefer poetry to be quick-witted and washed down with something wet, the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl sounds word-perfect.
It's a pub tour with two actors who introduce Dublin writers and perform scenes from their works: James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Mary Lavin, Brendan Behan. I shared the night with them all in the warm, welcoming fug of The Duke, O'Neill's, The Old Stand and Davy Burns, an establishment in which an entire chapter of Ulysses is set.
The tour takes just over two hours, but it's time that flies when you have just "20 minutes of quality drinking" at each establishment while listening to belting performances from the likes of Beckett's Waiting For Godot.
Speaking of waiting, half that quality drinking time is spent doing just that as your pint of Guinness is slowly poured and settles. But it's worth it.
Trinity College is included on the tour, giving you the chance to imagine yourself as the dilettante Oscar Wilde (who never graduated here but went on to Oxford) and to learn that old boys included Bram Stoker, James Joyce and Jonathan Swift.
By day, this very Georgian town rewards a meander around any of its relaxed squares. At tree-fringed Merrion Square, you'll find a statue of Oscar Wilde lying in splendid, colourful repose. Opposite, at No 1 Merrion Square, is American College, where Wilde grew up, and where there's a plaque remembering his surgeon father, Sir William Robert Wills Wilde.
This is just a few minutes' walk from Leinster House, home of the Dail, the National Gallery and the National Museum (all free) but put the W.B. Yeats exhibition at the National Library (also free) near the top of your list. Yeats was the most famous son of the single most significant artistic family in 20th century Ireland. The work of his artist father, J.B. Yeats, can be seen around the corner in the National Gallery.
This intimate exhibition tracks Yeats' poetry, his fascination with the occult and Kabbalah, his interest in Irish nationalism, and his time in the United States. It is expected to run until the end of next year.
Across the Liffey are the James Joyce Centre and the Dublin Writers' Museum, both worth a visit. The Writers' Museum celebrates the unlikely truth that this island, "separated from Rome, Athens, Constantinople and even London, gave birth to so many great writers". Perhaps appropriately, given the influence of drink on a fair few of them, the museum is in the old house of former Jameson Distillery production manager, George Jameson.
In the interest of research, this writer was obliged to visit the Jameson Old Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse.
Both are woven into Dublin's fabric and overrun with tourists. They're worth your consideration but surely your nip or pint is better supped after a plate of creamy seafood chowder or Irish stew at one of the delightfully ramshackle bars in the justly popular O'Neill's Hotel of Suffolk St. Stay long enough and you may end up joining a sing-along to Molly Malone.
Dublin has delights enough for a dozen visits, but each time I would unhesitatingly return to the Chester Beatty Library, one of the truly great collections of artistic treasures from world cultures and religions. From the Bible to the Koran, from Buddhism to Egyptian papyrus tests, from China to Africa, this is a breathtaking display of the richness of cultural expression, and not to be missed.
If all that culture leaves you famished, try dinner at Gallagher's Boxty House, where you can order a fine traditional Irish boxty, or potato pancake.
After that, there are the pubs and clubs of Temple Bar for the brave. But be warned - if you venture there of an evening, it's most unlikely you'll stay a sober man.
Antony Phillips visited Dublin with assistance from Cathay Pacific and Tourism Ireland.
- Detours, HoS
