We are headed to Ireland for the first time in July 2026 and are only there for two nights. We have booked the Book of Kells Experience and the Guiness Storehouse tour for day two.
We would like some ideas for; food/pub tours, don't miss pubs, especially interested in music and pub life. We are staying at the Mont Hotel.
Posted by
victoria, Canada
11607 posts
Absolutely can strongly recommend “Rural Pub Tours “ Dublin !
We’ve taken two of their tours in the past 10 years so the last one was only three years ago, but it was fun you go to these rural pubs and it’s like a mini bus not like that giant buses right I think our group had 10 people in it maybe so we did the one that was up in the Wicklow Mountain and then we did another one that went to some coastal towns highly highly recommend
Posted by
West Michigan
738 posts
Don't know where the Mont Hotel is, but we really liked eating at "The Bank on College Green". Beautiful place inside. Good food. Has a replica Book of Kells by the door.
For pubs, the oldest Pub in Dublin is the Brazen Head. Very old inside. Good pub food. If it's midday or early afternoon during the week, the Temple Bar really was a great place to hear music, but would probably be a zoo in the evenings or weekends. Another authentic local pub was Devitts, on lower Camden Street. Nothing special, just a very old, typical pub. But my Great-Great-Grandfather was Patrick Devitt, so I've decided it's his pub. I have the hat and t-shirt. Good Trad music upstairs in the evening, and good pub food.
I haven't been there, but I've read O'Donoghue's Pub on Suffolk street has good Trad music.
And we took the Guinness Storehouse tour a few weeks ago, it was excellent. Very well done. We even learned to play the drum there, and had a free beer on the top floor. We took a hop-on-hop-off Big Red Bus to get there, and to get around Dublin. Eoin was our bus driver/guide. He was excellent.
Posted by
California Central Coast 🐚
599 posts
We did the cocktail making class at the Jameson Distillery in Dublin. It was a lot of fun. I recommend it.
Posted by
victoria, Canada
11607 posts
Hi you contacted me about pub tour - but I don’t know how to post links
Just google
“ Rural Pub Tours “ Dublin - Wicklow mountains.
It’s easy to find - and has excellent reviews online too !
Wish we could post photos as I can do screen shots lol
I’m a tech dinosaur unfortunately
Posted by
OP
5 posts
Thank you. I have heard about some of those pubs as well. We will make a note. When we were in Spain and Italy, they had great walking food/drink tours, and we were hoping for one the evening we arrive (tired and just want to be told what to do time).
Posted by
Bellingham, WA
1883 posts
Take a look at Experiences on AirBnB. There are a lots of different tours on offer there.
Posted by
Ithaca, NY, USA
986 posts
We had amazing food tours in Italy and I’d do them again in a heartbeat. The only food tour we did in Ireland last year was in Kinsale, which is supposedly the foodie capital of Ireland.The guide was lovely and the tour was fine, but I wouldn’t do a food tour in Ireland again. You can get fish and chips and seafood chowder and beer in many many places, and there’s honestly nothing special about getting them on a food tour. If you google food tours in Dublin you’ll see a lot of people saying similar things there.
The best fish and chips we had on our three week trip to Ireland last year was at The Fish Shop in Dublin. It’s tiny and reservations are vital. You sit at a counter, which is fun because we ended up having a wonderful conversation with a local couple sitting next to us. The restaurant is very close to the Cobblestone Pub which has a lot of trad music without the crazy vibe of Temple Bar.