Guided Walks in April 2024

April newsletter 2024 Four amazing tours tomorrow and through April One amazing city.     Outdoors Guided walking tours for April.  Tickets on all our outdoors guided walking tours (below) include use of your own audio kit (a "whisper set") Because we bring audio equipment to all our outdoor tours, spots should be booked in advance please. 11.15AM,  SATURDAY 6th April:  Grafton Street.   I was interviewed last week by Olivia Kelly of the Irish Times, for an article she is writing about Grafton Street.  It is a place very familiar to Dubliners.   But how much do of us know about its history, or its buildings ? We will meet outside Weir's Jewellers, then walk up Grafton Street, then back down again.  We'll spend the time looking up and around us, noticing details and discussing the stories and history they can teach us. Expect to discover the oldest house on the street -a hidden Dutch Billy and another inspired by the discovery of the tomb of the ancient Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen.  Plus much (much) more besides. Tickets available here.     2.15PM,  SATURDAY 6th April.   "Planners and Professors"    Held later on the same day as our Grafton Street tour above, this amazing, more long ranging tour includes stretches of Lower Leeson Street, parts of Hatch Street Adelaide Road, Harcourt Terrace and Earlsfort Terrace.    This is an area synonymous with famous former school and university buildings.  But also with of the most notorious planning battles of 20th-century Dublin. Among many other sights, ideas and themes, we can expect to view and discuss    stories behind the grandest Edwardian student-digs in Dublin; the only true Regency terrace in Dublin a former synagogue and the old Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, the old Alexandra College site on Earlsfort Terrace. Concerts halls, famous university buildings and historic schools.   churches and private chapels.    We love all the history on this walk, contained around and within its many fascinating buildings.    We only do this tour once or twice a year however.   So definitely join us if you can. Your meet point (outside the Unitarian Church) will also be written on your confirmation email. Tickets available here.       TUES 23 APRIL, 1.45PM. Temple Bar:  1000 layers of history and change.   Temple Bar is an deeply historic area of Dublin which dates back over a thousand years to Viking and medieval times.  It was moreover,  the stronghold of Dublin's merchant elite from the 1400 -1700s.   Yet incredibly, this entire beautiful district,  with its banking and finance history,  its old trade and industries, its old theatres and its medical school, was threatened with almost complete destruction for much of the 20 century.     This unique walk around Temple Bar, from East to West, combines history in many guises,  social history, theatre-history, medical history, finance and business history,  to medieval and early modern history.    We will see and discuss the sites of an obscure vanished monastery, a vanished early 18th century opera house, and examples of award-winning contemporary architecture, from the last 30 years.  This eclectic tour is not to be missed.   Your meet point (outside Saint Andre's Post Office) will also be on your confirmation email.  Spots on this unique tour are priced at our slightly lower, mid-week price. and they are available here.